The opening week of the 2025 Dakar Rally has produced more than its fair share of drama and incident.
Two of the pre-event favorites, Dacia’s Sébastien Loeb and M-Sport Ford’s Carlos Sainz, are out of the rally having been withdrawn on safety grounds by the FIA following heavy crashes.
Due to the high attrition rate at the start of the 47th edition of the rally raid – which has featured a 960km, two-day chrono and a marathon stage, both of which left crews without outside mechanical assistance – many teams have already implemented what cross-country rallying jargon calls ‘water carriers’ to help ease the workload.
The technical language utilized in rally raid has, for many years, been something of the discipline’s downfall in reaching out to more casual motorsport fans, particularly those more familiar with conventional stage rallying like the WRC.
Also colloquially referred to as ‘high-speed assistance’, the role of the water carriers can be given either as a consequence of falling down the standings or as a pre-determined tactic.
The end goal is to ensure the best possible result for the team, prioritizing the effort of the crew most likely to finish the highest.
It’s an approach that’s not too dissimilar to that of stage cycling events such as the Tour de France, where team members are given distinct support roles to the team leader, knowing full well that they have no chance of taking the overall victory.
Dacia has implemented the 'water carrier' role with Cristina Gutiérrez
Dakar newcomers Dacia Sandriders elected to implement this tactic immediately, with Challenger graduates Cristina Gutiérrez and Pablo Moreno Huete taking on the support role for Sébastien Loeb (before he retired) and Nasser Al-Attiyah.
“It is quite clear for us,” Dacia team principal Tiphanie Isnard said after the second stage when Loeb was hamstrung by electrical issues. “Cristina is in a learning phase, and she is doing a fantastic job. But at the end of the day, it’s a team sport and she is the wingman for Séb in this stage. She is there right now for assistance.
“It’s our first Dakar for the Dacia Sandriders so the first rule is to have strong teamwork and to work closely together.”
The first sign of Gutiérrez and Moreno Huete being used as the water carriers came as early as stage two, with Dacia deciding to hold Gutiérrez for 25 minutes at the permitted service area 168km into the stage.
“At this time, we decided to stop Cristina to optimize our chances to reach the finish line of the 48-hour chrono with all three cars together on the stage, that is proper teamwork,” Isnard explained.
“And of course, big thanks to Cristina for accepting this decision, unfortunately it was her [who had to do this] because it was Séb who stopped with electrical issues. But the fact that she was there was a really big help for Séb at this time and it was encouraging to see them both working together like this.
“At the end of the first part of the chrono, all three cars were together in the same bivouac, so they were able to have a proper communication together and all six of them worked together to fix the car.”
The significance of having a team-mate in a support role on an event such as the Dakar Rally cannot be understated. All teams have a designated assistance truck which drives the same special stages as the competitors. Their role is to be the mechanical back-up in case of an accident or mechanical issue.
Competitors benefit from a service truck, but it has its limitations
The downside to the assistance truck is that, while able to carry a substantial number of spare parts and equipment, it drives the stages often hours after the cars have broken down.
But as the saying goes: a problem shared is a problem halved.
Former race mechanic turned navigator Moreno Huete has been of particular use to Dacia, and his efforts have not gone unnoticed.
“They helped us a lot because Pablo is quite a gifted mechanic and he had two or three pieces to lend us,” Loeb said following his issues on stage two. “He changed a fan for us, after which we were able to get a working fan again and then almost by chance the second one started working again after we restarted from the refueling zone.
“After that, we were going full gas for the remainder of the special, we managed to limit the damage, even though we lost 15 minutes. At one point, we were close to 40 minutes off, so it wasn’t such a bad day after all.”
Had Loeb and navigator Fabian Lurquin been forced to wait for the assistance truck, the nine-time World Rally champion would surely have waved goodbye to his victory chances there and then.
As it turned out, the time loss was limited and the mountain that little bit less steep.
For Moreno Huete, as it is with Gutiérrez, his first Dakar in a T1+ team is the perfect opportunity to learn on the job, without the pressure of achieving a strong result the first time out.
“I am a trained race mechanic and did that for many years but now my job is with helping the Dacia Sandriders team and I am happy to focus on this,” Moreno Huete told DirtFish.
“It’s a difficult job but one that is enjoyable. For me, learning to be a good co-driver and learning from two of the best navigators in the world is also a great opportunity.
“Being a mechanic is not such a big drama for me, it’s my real job and it makes me happy to do this. I was the chief mechanic for Cristina for many years and one day she asked me to be her new co-driver, but I knew nothing about being a co-driver back then, and I have only ever co-driven for Cristina.
“We saw Loeb stopped on the stage, so Cristina stopped next to him, and we had a look at the car. It was an easy repair job so we helped out with the parts so that he could continue.”
The matter-of-fact way in which Moreno Huete goes about his job just goes to show how much of a team spirit has been instilled at Dacia.
Throughout the history of the Dakar Rally, sportsmanship has played a major role in the event. Whether it is crews being handed lost time when attending to a crashed competitor or the camaraderie in the remote bivouacs around the campfire, the Dakar has also stood out for its fair play.
The same goes for teamwork.
Toyota has enjoyed a superb start to the Dakar this week but even still, the strategy of deploying water carriers came into play, with Guy Botterill there to help out on the first part of the marathon stage in case mechanical strife hit his team-mate and rally leader Henk Lategan.
Guy Botterill has played the 'water carrier' role for his rally-leading team-mate Henk Lategan
Indeed, the sacrifices for the water carriers go beyond their place in the overall rankings.
“We pulled up 5km after the start to wait for Henk; we got the thumbs-up from Brett [Cummings] to say thank you and then we pulled in behind him,” said Botterill.
“Then about 50km in, we had two punctures and the rest of the day we drove very slowly to get here because it was very hard on tires. It seemed like everyone was struggling with tires, so we took it very, very easy because we were carrying spares [parts for Lategan] in our car and we had to make sure we made it here.
“We managed to scrape through 300km with no spare tires, so we were very lucky.”
Back at Dacia, Moreno Huete was called upon once more on stage four following a broken rear suspension arm that cost Al-Attiyah nearly half an hour, taking him out of the podium positions.
With Loeb and Lurquin out of the rally, Gutiérrez and Moreno Huete’s job is even more crucial as the Dakar heads into the second week.
As Al-Attiyah and navigator Edouard Boulanger – also a skilled mechanic – rushed to repair their car, a spare tire was donated by Gutiérrez and Moreno Huete. The latter fixed the spare into its holder on the side of the car while Al-Attiyah and Boulanger strapped themselves into their seats.
Al-Attiyah is grateful for the support of his team-mates
Asked about the impact the pair had made on his stage, Al-Attiyah told DirtFish: “Oh, a lot. We are still learning about the car because we had such a short time with it last year in Morocco; okay, we won it, but it doesn’t mean that the car was 100% and we still need to understand the car a lot more going forward.
“Pablo is very important for us, and it’s important that navigators and drivers can be good mechanics, but to have the level of Pablo is really incredible.
“Last year, he competed with me in Dubai, and we won the race with the T3 overall; he was really amazing in that rally and we are really lucky to have him. But not only him, we are lucky to have three really good navigators who are mechanics and engineers too, Edouard and Fabian are both really great.”
The result of Gutiérrez and Moreno Huete’s rapid assistance was that Al-Attiyah limited the damage from a 45 minutes delay to 31 minutes. The following day, he leapt three positions to lie just off the podium.
And what’s clear is that the main contenders for victory will almost certainly have to rely on the support of their team-mates if they are to come out on top on January 17.
