The Dakar 2024 will start next Friday in Saudi Arabia. It is the culmination of a long and demanding preparation, on the ground and in the office, for what is the benchmark rally-raid event globally.
In an interview broadcasted by SMG, the race director, David Castera, explained the preparation process: ‘The Dakar Rally requires a year of preparation. We have several teams involved. There are teams at the A-S.O. office in Paris, who mainly work on the sports aspects and specifications. And then there are all the Saudi teams associated with us, who are more focused on logistics’.
According to the responsible, it is a process that takes more than a year, with several preparation trips: ‘Together, we work for over a year to prepare this rally. So we need to make about four to five inspection trips of about two weeks each to get to a more or less complete Dakar. In addition, there are roadbook checks. So we end up doing five or six complete passes of the Dakar in a year to prepare it’.
Castera concluded: ‘So essentially we do four Dakar Rally with our vehicles to prepare one. But to give an idea, we cover many kilometers. Some routes are approved, others are not. Some routes are prohibited, so we need to go back. There is a lot of work to ensure that everything is validated and well organized by all institutions so that we can launch the rally’.
