Story: Noel Flatters | Editor - Enduro.Media
January 3rd, 2024

Welcome to the 2024 Dakar Rally!

The 2024 Dakar Rally, the fifth consecutive edition of the race in Saudi Arabia and Round 1 of the W2RC Series, kicks off this coming Friday and we couldn’t be more excited to bring you our daily coverage of the race here at Enduro.Media! Teams and riders are on site in the town of Alula completing scrutineering ahead of opening ceremonies and the prologue. This year’s route looks exceptionally demanding, and the addition of a new self-supported 48-hour chrono stage in the Empty Quarter should add an interesting challenge for riders to overcome if they want to succeed here.

Today we’re going to look at the overall race and some of the big storylines coming in, and provide a little bit of analysis to answer what are always our three biggest questions here at Enduro.Media - What? So What? Now What?

The Bottom Line Up-Front

• This year’s edition will cover 12 stages (plus the prologue) for a total of 7,891 kilometres distance, which includes 4,727 kilometres of special stages, with only one rest day.

• The new 48-hour self-supported chrono stage will see riders complete 818 kilometres of distance, including 584 kilometres of special stages, over stages 6A and 6B on January 10th/11th. Riders will be staying in one of eight bivouacs scattered around the Empty Quarter and will receive no team assistance. This will require riders to embrace different tactics than normal, and to have a finely tuned sense of risk tolerance. A mistake on 6A or 6B could have massive consequences for race hopes.

• 2023 overall winner #47 Kevin Benavides (Red Bull KTM Factory Team) is back to defend his title over 2023 2nd and 3rd place overall finishers Toby Price (Red Bull KTM Factory Team) and Sklyer Howes (Monster Energy Honda Team).

• While Honda and the KTM Group Factory teams have the big numbers of entries in Rally GP (11 of the 23 entries) the most interesting story on the manufacturer side of things will be how the Hero and Kove bikes perform and finish this year. The Hero Motorsports team has five entries in the class, and Kove has the talented young American rider Mason Klein lining up as their sole entry in the class. If these teams can generate some top results and/or stage wins it would be a major shot across the bows of the major brands.

The COURSE

As noted above, this year’s Dakar will cover just under 8000kms with 4,727kms of special stages. Five of the stages will be over 450kms, including the monster combined stages 6A/6B stages’ 584kms of specials.

We’ll be covering each stage in more detail in our daily recaps, as routes are only released the evening before each stage.

Riders & Teams to Watch

Defending champion Kevin Benavides (Argentina) is back with the Red Bull KTM Factory team along with his Australian teammate Toby Price, who finished 2nd overall last year (just 43 seconds back after over 44 hours of racing!). KTM rider Matthias Walkner is unable to start, however, following a leg injury in Dakar preparation in the US.

Kevin Benavides: “When I look back on the 2023 Dakar, I am so proud. Shortly before the finish, I remember the moment, just 12 seconds from the end of the last stage, when I controlled my emotions. Focused, decided, and determined, I did everything I had to do - riding a bike - and I had to do it well. I consider it as a positive experience that motivates me a lot. The year started very well, but I broke my femur before Abu Dhabi. Then, while I was recovering and testing with the team in the USA, I crashed and injured my wrist. All my dreams of fighting for the World Cup were gone. Then I joined my brother in the DR 40, and I think it was important. I decided not to race in Morocco because I wasn't fighting for anything, as it could have been dangerous. I stayed by his side to support and help him during the rally. And I think that was positive. Luciano won the world championship. We as a family are proud and delighted with what we have achieved. What will the next Dakar be like? Every Dakar is unique. And the next one will also be, with that 48-hour stage, that will surely play a different role. We will have to adapt our strategy. I won the Dakar with Honda, I won it with KTM - something that is unprecedented - and it's true that I have nothing to prove. But the motivation is the same: I continue to ride because I love it. I think I have a chance to achieve more. I'm ultra-competitive. I'm going to give my best. I'm going with the hope of winning a third star”.

Continuing with the KTM Group teams, 2022 and 2017 champion #4 Sam Sunderland is back and hoping to make up for his stage 1 crash/injury abandon last year. Keep an eye on Sunderland, obviously, as he has finished on the overall podium every year he’s completed the Dakar. “Racing at the highest level is always a challenge, to have everything align and get the wins. If it was easy, it wouldn't be so respected or interesting. So as much as it's frustrating, it's also part of the process that makes the wins taste so good. I think the motivation to win is either there or it isn’t, from a young age. And when you've been doing it so long, it's hard to put a finger on exactly what it is that makes you hungry to win. But trust me, it's still there! Physically I'm good now and looking to keep building towards Dakar, where it’s obviously the time to be peaking. I'll prepare for Dakar 2024 the best way I can. Luckily, I have a great team around me at GasGas who help bring it all together -especially with the roadbook training, which as we've seen has been so important in recent editions. Given my record, I guess the goal should be to finish and we should be somewhere close, but I definitely want to get a third title in the bag. Honestly, the Dakar always stands out for me more than other races. I don’t know if it's because there’s much more glory on the line or what it is, but it certainly always brings out the fire in me."

The Monster Energy Honda Team comes in with a very strong team this year, including new addition Sklyer Howes who came over from Husqvarna Factory Racing after his unexpected departure from that team mid-season last year. "If you finish on the Dakar podium, you can probably win it. It comes down to refining your racecraft and learning from previous mistakes. Last year there were two different days where I tried a strategy that didn't work out, so I can put that knowledge into practice this year. So much at Dakar is up to chance. That's kind of the beauty of the rally, it always has something new for you. Every single day, you go out there thinking 'this is my strategy'. But that stage, that desert, has its own plans for you. I think I'm just going to go back to my original mindset, just have fun with it. You have to minimise the mistakes and just keep moving forward. I led the rally for six stages last year and was in the top three for most of it. I know I can win it. I'll take the stuff I learned in 2023 and apply it to 2024. I'll aim to catch the guys in front of me and just do the best I can.” Previous Dakar champion #9 Ricky Brabec and perennial podium finisher #7 Pablo Quintanilla help round out this team that should be in strong contention.

American youngster Mason Klein is one of the most intriguing entries this year. A last minute deal with Kove helped get 2022’s top rookie to this year’s Dakar, and he’ll be looking to improve on his 9th place overall last year and his race-ending crash from last year after winning Stage 2. This will be Kove’s second year at Dakar, and with a rider of Klein’s quality on one of their machines we should have a much greater understanding as to where the Chinese bike fits in against the European and Japanese giants. Don’t count Klein out for an overall podium finish or stage wins. He could be a true disruptor this year. "I'm pretty happy with the results I had at Dakar 2023, besides not seeing the finish line. I have much more knowledge about the racing, and I think I have an even better strategy. I have good odds of riding safer and faster, and hopefully getting a really good result. The secrets I learned I would rather not say, to keep that competitive advantage! But I will say I confirmed that prologue position means nothing, and if I want to win, I'll need to learn to be more patient. Last year I crashed because I was navigating and racing at the same time. I have to remember to keep those two things separate. I've decided to race with my own team for Dakar 2024 because I needed a change of environment in order to improve my results. The hardest part of Dakar is making the start, so success for me is starting the rally; everything else after that is a win."

Hero Motosports Team Rally is the other team we’ll be keeping an eye on. Although they don’t have any identifiable ‘stars’ on the team, they have a very solid lineup with multiple stage winners from previous editions. Like Kove, the Hero team is here to prove their bike against the big industry brands. If they can perform well while hunting for and (hopefully) securing stage wins, they will be in mission success mode.