2024 Dakar Rally: Mistakes, penalties pervade Prologue

The Prologue stage is the first big test of a rally raider’s ability against other competitors, giving them a place to shake off any last-minute rust before the “real” race begins the following day. Indeed, most of those who pulled onto the starting podium to begin the 2024 Dakar Rally are hoping what happened Friday will be the last time they occur.

Multiple drivers found themselves losing time in the Prologue due to a navigation error, most notably Nasser Al-Attiyah as the twice reigning Dakar winner missed an intersection and lost some time. Tim and Tom Coronel did the same, going straight instead of turning right and they had to turn around.

“The stage is short but we made a little mistake because there was a lot of road there,” Al-Attiyah commented. “We missed one junction but I think we finished in a good way.”

As this mistake relegated Al-Attiyah to twelfth, Mattias Ekström scored Audi’s second consecutive Dakar Prologue win ahead of the former’s Toyota successor Seth Quintero. Al-Attiyah’s new team-mate Sébastien Loeb led a Prodrive contingent in third with Marcos and Cristian Baumgart in tow; Loeb’s eponymous SSV team topped their class as well with Xavier de Soultrait, marking the first time a Polaris RZR won a Dakar stage since Patrice Garrouste claimed the penultimate day in 2018.

Reigning SSV Dakar champion Eryk Goczał led his uncle Michał in their first Dakar as a Challenger team. WRC veteran Kris Meeke, a late replacement for Kees Koolen, finished third.

Tomáš Ouředníček and Frédéric Chesneau had a major scare when they hit each other head-on 22 kilometres into the stage. Both were able to brake in time to avoid substantial damage, but Ouředníček has reported the matter to the FIA.

“If it had been in some more distant place, it could have been very bad,” wrote Ouředníček. “It is absolutely unsporting and dangerous behavior and that is why we have reported it to the FIA. The competitor could be disqualified for such behavior, but will probably only receive a penalty. The crew didn’t come to us, didn’t apologise, didn’t even promise to pay for the damage (the front fascia of the car was damaged). We couldn’t just let this kind of behaviour go by.”

A swath of Rally2 riders received fifteen-minute penalties for missing waypoints. One of the victims was Kerim Fitz-Gerald, who was slapped with thirty minutes which ruined an otherwise impressive Prologue in which he led the class; his penalty promoted reigning Rally2 champion Romain Dumontier to the top spot for the day.

Skyler Howes‘ Prologue misfortunes as a Honda rider continued when he crashed while trying to navigate between a particularly windy set of waypoints and overshot; his début with the outfit at Morocco last October was cut short by an accident in the same stage. His new Monster Energy Honda Rally Team colleague Tosha Schareina, on the other hand, won the Prologue with twelve seconds on GasGas’ Daniel Sanders.

“The organisation likes to play a bit with some things and they had some sticks that we were supposed to go through,” Howes explained. “There were so many lines going through each way throughout the open desert that it was hard to see these sticks, I cut across to go through them, hit a big camel grass that was obviously off track and had a really big crash, but luckily I was okay. I damaged the bike, lost quite a bit of time and it was hard to ride afterwards as I’d also damaged the roadbook so I had to rely on following the tracks.

“Later on in the stage, there was a tricky note—obviously I had no roadbook to verify, so I was more or less going around in circles just trying to figure it out. Finally, I validated the waypoint and was able to continue on, but I lost about five minutes today which is super frustrating and an annoying way to start the race like this.”

Fortunately for those with problems, the Prologue time is no longer included in the final overall times because of how short they are; the 2024 Dakar Prologue was twenty-seven kilometres long, which is slightly longer than its previous counterparts but not enough to justify accounting for it in the end. As a result, Prologues are now mostly used just to set the Stage #1 starting order for both the FIM and FIA, which the top ten finishers in each get to choose.

Mason Klein will open the first stage for FIM after finishing tenth in his maiden day with Kove Moto, an impressive run after a tumultuous week in which his bike was stuck at customs in the United Arab Emirates and his team had to drive to the border at night to fetch it. The team managed to set up the bike and get it approved just thirty minutes before administrative checks and scrutineering closed on Thursday afternoon. While early bike starters are at a disadvantage since they set the course which those behind them can follow, Klein feels his navigation skills can negate this and his rivals’ faster speeds.

Prologue winners

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Time
Ultimate (T1)	207	Mattias Ekström	Team Audi Sport	16:30.9
Stock (T2)	500	Akira Miura*	Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body	24:06.9
Challenger (T3)	302	Eryk Goczał	EnergyLandia Rally Team	17:34.6
SSV (T4)	411	Xavier de Soultrait*	Sébastien Loeb Racing	18:38.5
Truck (T5)	600	Janus van Kasteren*	Boss Machinery Team de Rooy	19:34.0
RallyGP	68	Tosha Schareina	Monster Energy Honda Rally Team	17:35.9
Rally2	16	Romain Dumontier	Team Dumontier Racing	19:43.0
Quad	173	Francisco Moreno	Drag’on Rally Team	21:31.4
Classic	700	Juan Morera*	Momabikes Raid Team	3 points

* – Not competing in World Rally-Raid Championship