The 2016 Dakar Rally was the 38th edition of the event and the eighth successive year that the event was held in South America. The event started in Buenos Aires, Argentina on January 2, then ran through Argentina and Bolivia.Dakar 2016: Plan B, fast, very fast!
Sébastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen made their debuts in rally-raid, driving for Peugeot and MINI respectively.
The victory in cars category was contested in court by runner-up X-Raid Team.
History ASO soon faced problems planning the 2016 rally. Chile refused to take the rally, the first time since Dakar is being held in South America, and then, with just 4 months to the start, Peru also refused to take the rally. Without Atacama Desert and Andes, the rally was mainly based in Argentina with many fast stages on closed narrow tracks WRC style, and a lack of stages in full open terrain with heavy navigation issues.
The biggest issue that the competitors faced was the weather phenomenon El Niño which shortened most of the stages due to heavy rain (in first week) and massive heat (in the second one). All these problems led to a big criticism and made Dakar director Étienne Lavigne announce a possible change of the rally to Southern Africa, aiming to put pressure on South American countries. Later, he would announce that the rally would remain in South America, and was looking for new countries.
The rally was won by 2015 rookie Toby Price, continuing the KTM dominance, with Honda still suffering from a lack of reliability. Patronelli brothers dominated in Quads (this time by Marcus), while Peugeot returned with a better car than the rivals, as the Peugeot 2008 DKR led from the first real stage until the end of the rally. The debutant Sébastien Loeb dominated the first week, but in the end, the victory went to Mr. Dakar Stephane Peterhansel. Gerard de Rooy won the Dakar again, putting an end to Kamaz dominance.
Honda placed behind KTM in the rally. A margin existed between the performance of Mini and the new Peugeot, and the Toyota entries placed behind their competitors. Following previous wins in the Dakar races, Kamaz did not hold the lead.
Controversies After the problems that the organization suffered to put 2016 Dakar Rally on track, the rally was marked by the crash of a Chinese businesswoman from the pharmaceutical industry who bought a place in the X-Raid team. Ten people were injured, two of them seriously. This led to a discussion of whether the toughest rally race in the world should be open to anyone who has a sports license, without any other criteria.
Most of the following stages were modified due to rain or heat which caused the competitive sectors to be shortened. In addition to the discussion regarding the need for the cancellations, the most controversy was generated by the [apparent] double standards of the organization. In stage seven, the ASO decided to cancel the second timed sector, although 22 riders had already reached the finish line, with all bike and quad riders staying within the time of the first sector. In stage 9, there was another cancellation of the second timed sector when 12 bike riders had already finished. But this time ASO initially considered the time of the first sector, and then changed the stage classification, with the time at the end of the second sector for those 12 riders who finished and assigning the remaining riders a theoretical time of 34 minutes more than the first contestant. Then at the end of the next stage, the penalty to Paulo Gonçalves for repairing his bike in the previous stage was given and taken away. He was out of the race because his bike broke at the end of the first sector, but when the second sector was canceled, he was again in the race. Then more than 24 hours later, he received a penalty for repairing the bike after the second sector.
This Dakar was also marked by several accidents involving assistance trucks, causing some deaths among the local population. The reason given by the crews was the lack of sleep since in most of the stages they had to drive for about 20 hours between bivouacs.
The most controversial moment was reserved for the finish with X-Raid appealing to the French Sports Court, claiming Stephane Peterhansel had an illegal refuel in stage 8, leaving the victory decision to be taken in the court. In stage 8, Peterhansel took advantage of a neutralized section and started the race with less fuel, refueling in the neutralized section. X-Raid immediately contested the decision, since several drivers such as Nasser Al-Aiyah or even Sainz and Loeb had to reduce the pace in order to save some fuel, due to the extension of the stage, but ASO stewards acquitted Peterhansel.
Entries + Number of participants StageBikesQuadsCarsTrucksTotalStart of Rally 136 45 111 55 347Rest Day 112 36 90 51 289End of Rally 84 (61%) 23 (51%) 67 (60%) 41 (75%) 215 (62%)
Bikes + Leading EntriesManufacturerNo.Rider KTM3 Toby Price5 Štefan Svitko910111214 Matthias Walkner2536 Honda261922 Javier Pizzolito47 Kevin Benavides Yamaha71518 Husqvarna4 Pablo Quintanilla8 Sherco1720
Cars + Leading Entries Car No. Driver Co-driver Ford 320 Xavier Pons Ricardo Torlaschi Peugeot 302 Stéphane Peterhansel Jean-Paul Cottret 303 Carlos Sainz Lucas Cruz 314 Sébastien Loeb Daniel Elena 321 Cyril Despres David Castera 328 Romain Dumas François Borsotto Mini 300 Nasser Al-Attiyah Matthieu Baumel 304 Nani Roma Alex Haro 306 Erik Van Loon Wouter Rosegaar 310 Orlando Terranova Bernardo Graue 315 Mikko Hirvonen Michel Périn 325 Adam Malysz Xavier Panseri Toyota 301 Giniel de Villiers Dirk von Zitzewitz 305 Yazeed Al-Rajhi Timo Gottschalk 307 Vladimir Vasilyev Konstantin Zhiltsov 311 Bernhard ten Brinke Tom Colsoul 316 Ronan Chabot Gilles Pillot 322 Marek Dabrowski Jacek Czachor 329 Martin Prokop Jan Tománek 333 Benediktas Vanagas Sebastian Rozwadowski 366 Antanas Juknevičius Mindaugas Slapšys
Quads
+ Leading EntriesManufacturerNo.Rider Yamaha250251252253254264265 Honda255266267 Can-Am258260
Trucks
+ Leading EntriesManufacturerNo.DriverCo-Drivers Kamaz500502504508 Iveco501503514516518 MAN506 Tatra505533 Ginaf520 MAZ 507 Siarhei Viazovich Pavel Haranin Andrei Zhyulin
Stages Distance according to the official website.
StageDateDepartArriveBikesQuadsCarsTrucksWinnerWinnerWinnerWinner2 January Buenos Aires Rosario34611 J. Barreda I. Casale34611 B. Ten Brinke34611Stage neutralized13 January Rosario Villa Carlos Paz632227Stage cancelled due to bad weather662258Stage cancelled662258Stage cancelled24 January Villa Carlos Paz Termas de Río Hondo786450354 T. Price I. Casale858521387 S. Loeb858521387 P. Versluis35 January Termas de Río Hondo San Salvador de Jujuy663314200 K. Benavides B. Baragwanath663314200 S. Loeb663314130 M. Kolomy4M6 January San Salvador de Jujuy San Salvador de Jujuy629429 P. Gonçalves A. Hernández629429 S. Peterhansel619418 G. Rooy57 January San Salvador de Jujuy Uyuni624327 T. Price A. Hernández624327 S. Loeb624327 E. Nikolaev68 January Uyuni Uyuni723542 T. Price M. Patronelli723542 S. Peterhansel600295 H. Stacey79 January Uyuni Salta793353230 A. Méo L. Bonetto793353 C. Sainz793353 E. Nikolaev10 January SaltaRest Day811 January Salta Belén766393 T. Price M. Patronelli766393 N. Al-Attiyah766393 G. Rooy912 January Belén Belén436M285M T. Price P. Copetti396285 C. Sainz396285 G. Rooy1013 January Belén La Rioja561278 Š. Svitko B. Baragwanath763278 S. Peterhansel763431 P. Baar1114 January La Rioja San Juan712431 A. Méo A. Patronelli712431 N. Al-Attiyah712431 E. Nikolaev1215 January San Juan Villa Carlos Paz931481 H. Rodrigues M. Patronelli866481 M. Hirvonen866267 P. Versluis1316 January Villa Carlos Paz Rosario699180 P. Quintanilla B. Baragwanath699180 S. Loeb699180 H. Stacey Notes: M: Marathon Stage (without assistance park). Prologue neutralized after car accident, preventing trucks to run. Stage 1 cancelled due to bad weather. Stage 2 shortened due to bad weather. Stage 3 shortened due to bad weather. The trucks stage was then neutralized after second waypoint due to track abatement. Stage 7 shortened for bikes and quads due to bad weather (second timed sector cancelled). Stage 9 and 11 shortened due to massive heat. Stage 10 shortened due to high water river.
Summary http://www.dakar.com/dakar/2016/us/media-area.html#tab3 Dakar Press Releases The race started with an 11 km prologue in Buenos Aires, marked by an accident when a car driver went through the spectators injuring 10 people, with the organization neutralizing the race for the remaining competitors. The first "real" stage was cancelled due to bad weather. Due to the same reason, the second and third stages were shortened about 100 km. The third stage for trucks was shortened a second time after a part of the track collapsed due to the heavy rain. The fourth and fifth stages were the two legs of 2016 Dakar first Marathon stage, with the innovation this year of vehicles entering a closed park at the end of the first leg, with the competitors being unable to do repair and maintenance work, even without assistance. Stage 7 was one of the most dramatic. First, the return to Argentina and El Niño, cancelling the second time sector for Bikes and Quads. Then of Matthias Walkner's serious accident and the crash of Lionel Baud's Mitsubishi, killing one spectator in Bolivia. The extreme heat led to stages 9 and 11 being shortened while the last 33 km of stage 10 was cancelled due to rain-flooded rivers.
Bikes This was the first race without Cyril Despres and Marc Coma who had dominated the 10 previous editions. It was expected a full open race with a large group of candidates to the victory across KTM and Honda but soon Husqvarna (competing with KTM bikes) reinforced by the candidate Ruben Faria joined for the victory while Yamaha (which lost some of its most valued competitors but assisted of the return of Hélder Rodrigues) played a secondary role. Sherco was also expecting for a surprise mainly from Alain Duclos
Joan Barreda started the rally with a strong pace, as usual, and won the prologue, setting the fastest time in the 3rd and 4th stages, but was given two penalties for speeding in the connections. This led to the victory of the Argentinian rookie Kevin Benavides and the leadership of the privateer Štefan Svitko in the 3rd stage. In stage 4 a double for Portugal with Paulo Gonçalves winning the stage ahead of Ruben Faria, and securing the lead. Victories on stages 5 and 6 for KTM Toby Price but Gonçalves was still in the lead. On stage 6, an accident led to the retirement of Ruben Faria with a broken wrist when he was 7th overall, and Joan Barreda lost all the chances of winning the 2016 Dakar when mechanical problems caused a finish five hours behind Price.
In stage 7, the retirement of two victory candidates: Joan Barreda, who refused to continue after the heavy loss of time the day before, despite the bike being in good condition and Matthias Walkner, who had an accident which led to his retirement with a broken femur. Gonçalves was the first rider to arrive and stayed until the medical rescue arrived. Later the organization took out the 10,53 minutes he stayed with his rival. Antoine Méo won the stage and Gonçalves increased the lead over Toby Price. Svitko was third before the rest day.
In stage 8, another victory for Price, while Gonçalves, who suffered a spectacular accident but still took his Honda to finish second in the stage. In the next stage more problems for Gonçalves with a puncture in the heat exchanger in the second sector. He managed to pull through the bivouac, losing 30 minutes and falling to third place overall. Since it was a marathon stage (but without closed-park as stage 4), Gonçalves repaired the bike with the help of Honda teammates and the Portuguese Mário Patrão, without replacing the motor and avoiding the respective penalty. However, the organization still applied an almost 40-minute penalty at the end of stage 10, ending Gonçalves victory aspirations.