Road opener Guillaume de Mévius understood. Dacia’s Nasser Al-Attiyah and Sébastien Loeb, they certainly understood. And by the time the Ultimate crews had left the Bisha bivouac at 07:30 this morning, the strategy of those hoping to win the 2025 Dakar Rally was clear.
Winning the first proper stage of this year’s event was simply not an option. Indeed, the outcome of stage one has been dictated not by what’s already happened, but by what’s on the menu tomorrow.
Stage two is the 48-hour chrono, a mammoth 960km [600-mile] test spanning two days, whereby crews will be without all outside mechanical assistance, except for a tire change at halfway. It may well set the tone for the remainder of the Dakar, and no crew wants to be the first car on the road and risk severe time losses. Especially with around 250km of sand and dunes with no bike tracks to follow.
Among those ‘playing the game’ and taking things a bit calmer and more collected than they would otherwise was five-time Dakar winner Al-Attiyah. For the Dacia Sandrider driver, the go-slow approach was the only logical ploy.
“In the last 10km, we had a flat tire, so we had to stop, but then after that we decided to stop for 15 minutes to have at least a good road position for tomorrow,” explained Al-Attiyah, who finished over six minutes down on the stage winner Guerlain Chicherit.
“I know that we maybe lost a lot of time against those around us, but it is very important for us tomorrow. If I start 50th, it would be very nice. I learned a lot from last year and we don’t need to learn this year; we need to be smart.”
Dacia team-mate Loeb was equally adamant that sacrificing a good stage time on day one was necessary to gain the theoretical upper hand for the 48-hour chrono.
“It was quite a boring day today because we all have to play some strategy for tomorrow,” admitted Loeb. “None of us wanted to win the stage today, for sure. We wanted to have a good road position for the 48-hour stage tomorrow, so we took it easy.
“We even stopped near the end of the stage to lose more time, so we are quite satisfied with the position. We lost 10 minutes, and we are quite far behind the leader. We’ll be around 15th on the road tomorrow, so this is good.”
Mattias Ekström was the fastest Ford on Prologue and was set to do the same on SS1 until strategy came into play
In the M-Sport Ford camp, Mattias Ekström and his navigator Emil Bergkvist had been the leading contenders before coming to a halt near the end of the stage too.
“It was a good stage for us, as everybody knows, it is the 48-hour stage tomorrow and I think there is a little bit of strategy going on at the moment,” said Bergkvist.
“We were just cruising through the stage, no mistakes. We had a clean run, hit some bushes but we had fun.”
It’s rare that a strategic hand this drastic is played this early on the Dakar but, with road position almost as important as reliability, the logic is sound, provided there are no banana skins, that is. This year’s Dakar will feature 45% separate stages, meaning that the bike and car categories will drive completely different routes.
The rest of the time, the bikes field opens the road and the car crews having a slightly easier time navigating, being able to follow the tracks of their two-wheeled colleagues.
Winning the opening stage was an against-the-grain strategy choice by Guerlain Chicherit
For those at the top of the standings, the part-time joy of placing strongly will be off-set by opening the road tomorrow. Seth Quintero won the stage, receiving a notional time following after stopping to assist with Laia Sanz who crashed on the stage. X-raid Mini’s Guerlain Chicherit, who had initially set the quickest time will start second on the road tomorrow.
M-Sport’s Carlos Sainz ended up 3m27s off the pace in eighth, with Al-Attiyah and Loeb 13m13s and 14m16s back respectively.
Stage 1 Result (Bisha-Bisha)
1 Seth Quintero/Dennis Zenz (Toyota Gazoo Racing) 4h35m08s
2 Guerlain Chicherit/Alex Winoq (X-raid Mini JCW) +55s
3 Saood Variawa/François Cazalet (Toyota Gazoo Racing) +1m48s
4 Martin Prokop/Viktor Chytka (Orlen Jipocar) +1m49s
5 Cristina Gutiérrez Herrero/Pablo Moreno Huete (Dacia Sandriders) +2m13s
6 João Ferreira/Filipe Palmeiro (X-raid Mini JCW) +2m38s
7 Lucas Moraes/Armand Monleon (Toyota Gazoo Racing) +3m18s
8 Carlos Sainz/Lucas Cruz (M-Sport Ford) +3m27s
9 Guillaume de Mévius/Mathieu Baumel (X-raid Mini JCW) +5m37s
10 Marcelo Tiglia Gastaldi/Adrien Metge (Century Racing) 5m43s
15 Mattias Ekström/Emil Bergkvist (M-Sport Ford) +8m02s
17 Nani Roma/Alex Haro Bravo (M-Sport Ford) +9m28s
21 Nasser Al-Attiyah/Edoaurd Boulanger (Dacia Sandriders) +13m13s
25 Sébastien Loeb/Fabian Lurquin (Dacia Sandriders) +14m16s
