Mini beats Toyotas in dramatic Dakar Rally opener

Dakar’s first official day of racing delivered a sharp sting in the tail with a significant reshuffle among the leaders through the day’s tough final sector. At the end of the day, Frenchmen Guerlain Chicherit and Alex Winocq’s Mini shrugged off the ado around them to score a surprise win over Toyota Gazoo Racing crews, American Seth Quintero and Dennis Zenz, and South African Saood Variawa driving with French navigator Francois Cazalet.

Saturday’s 413km first full stage set off on sand tracks before switching between that and dirt and gravel tracks in a loop around Bisha described as a mosaic of terrains ready to test even the most experienced navigators to the very limit. To that end, Dakar’s bonus time system helps mitigate the disadvantage of opening the road, but the final sector had its own ideas.

The top ten from Friday’s prologue chose their starting positions within the top 30. Winner, Henk Lategan opted to set off eleventh in his Hilux, while tenth man Guillaume de Mévius opened the road in his Mini. Many observers had predicted Ford and Dacia to fight it out for Dakar 2025, but that seemed wide off the mark as two Minis sandwiched five Toyotas in the top seven at the first checkpoint. 

Chicherit and Winocq’s Mini started 30th, but led early on, from Gazoo Hilux crews, South Africans Guy Botterill and Dennis Murphy and Brazilians Lucas Moraes and Armand Monleon. Saudi home hero Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk followed in another Hilux, from Variawa and Cazalet and South African champions Lategan and Brett Cummings in two more Gazoo Hiluxes, and de Mevius’ Mini.

Moraes and Variawa moved ahead into a Gazoo 1-2 at quarter-distance with another all-SA combination, Brian Baragwanath and Leonard Cremer up to fifth in their Century CR7 from Lategan, Brazilians Gastaldi and Metge in another Century, Quintero and Zenz’ Hilux, Portuguese Mini duo Joao Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro. Multiple bike winners, Aussie Toby Price and Brit Sam Sunderland were ninth in their Hilux from Denis Krotov and Konstantin Zhiltsov’s Mini.

It was a Gazoo 1-2-3 at mid distance as Variawa led Moraes and Botterill, Mini trio Chicherit, Ferreira and Krotov, and six more Toyotas down to 12th place, as the Centurys slipped back. Chicherit leapfrogged the three Toyotas ahead to lead through the following checkpoint as Variawa and Moraes fought over second. Moraes then overhauled Chicherit for the lead at the penultimate waypoint, with Variawa close behind as the three went into the final sector in that order. 

It was however Chicherit who emerged as the stage winner as the charging Quintero came out of the blue to pip Gazoo teammate Variawa to second. Czech Raptor privateers Martin Prokop and Viktor Chytka also came out of nowhere to put one over the entire factory Ford team in fourth. Leader Moraes and Botterill from fourth, plummeted to a provisional 8th and 14th respectively, while lady hero Cristina Gutiérrez and Pablo Moreno’s Dacia Sandrider also appeared out of the blue in fifth ahead of the Ferreira Mini.  

2024 winners Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz similarly found an amazing six minutes in the final sector to pop from 17th to seventh in the best of the factory Ford Raptors. They edged Moraes, Price and Lategan in tenth. Other South Africans in the top 20 included Daniel Schröder and Henry Köhne’s privateer WCT Amarok in a fine 14th ahead of Botterill, Baragwanath 17th in the Century, and Giniel de Villiers and Dirk von Zitzewitz’s Gazoo Hilux in 19th ahead of Al Attiyah, Loeb and several other big names.

Judging by all that, quite literally anything can happen on Sunday’s first half of Dakar’s thousand-kilometre 2-day 48H Chrono stage. While the day starts as usual, crews must report to the closest of six overnight rest areas after 5 pm, where they will camp under the stars, before setting off to finish the balance of the stage on Monday. No outside assistance is allowed, leaving crews to rely on one another to do any repairs. The Chrono stage will also see the bikes racing a different route to the cars.

Motorsport Media