2024 Dakar Rally: Start of Chrono Stage is end of the road for Al-Rajhi

The 2024 Dakar Rally‘s shiny new feature, the 48-hour Chrono Stage, kicked off Thursday as competitors on both the FIA and FIM sides started concurrently—a departure from the latter heading out first—before branching off on their own routes through the Empty Quarter desert. As the name suggests, the stage will last for two days, with everyone reporting to a break area once the clock struck 4 PM on Thursday and will resume Friday at 6 AM.

Unfortunately for many, the sweeping dunes and chotts of the Empty Quarter cut short their marathon before they could reach their base camp. Yazeed Al-Rajhi was the biggest victim when he entered the Chrono Stage as the overall leader, but was forced to retire after just fifty-one kilometres when he flipped his Toyota Hilux at high speeds. He and co-driver Timo Gottschalk were unharmed, but the crash forced them to withdraw from the stage, effectively putting them out of contention for the win even if they are able to return to the race.

“We caught up with the two cars in front of us. We didn’t slack off, we were driving well,” said Al-Rajhi. “We had a flat during the stage, and it was challenging. We were driving at a high speed, but the car hit something, flipped on her face, onto the windshield. I believe they said something about the shocks; we want to adjust them a bit, make them tougher to withstand the next two days. Perhaps the stiffness of the shocks, along with refuelling, made it tighter up.”

With Al-Rajhi out of the picture, Wednesday’s stage winner Nasser Al-Attiyah found himself with a prime opportunity to take the overall lead. However, the stage win may have also bitten him as it meant starting up front, a disadvantageous position as the first starters have to navigate the route on their own whereas those after them could simply follow. Sébastien Loeb and Carlos Sainz both opted to sacrifice time and the win in Stage #5 to avoid starting first, which has paid off for them so far as Sainz currently leads the stage after the first day with twenty-four minutes on fifth-placed Al-Attiyah while Loeb sits third. Sainz’s Audi team-mate Mattias Ekström is second.

While Al-Rajhi is the most prominent loss, others to fall before the Chrono Stage include Kris Meeke and Krzysztof Hołowczyc, who crashed together with the latter hitting the former’s driver-side door, though both were not injured and remained in good spirits. Stéphane Peterhansel, the third Audi driver, had a tyre puncture that he could not efficiently resolve after the hydraulic jack system malfunctioned, causing the car to lose power steering. Vaidotas Žala also lost his hydraulics after hitting a pothole and he subsequently bowed out.

On the bike side, Skyler Howes was forced to retire after just thirty-nine kilometres with a mechanical issue, while his Monster Energy Honda team-mate and Stage #5 winner Pablo Quintanilla ran out of fuel just ten km before the refuel station and lost nearly an hour and a half in time once he was able to rejoin. Romain Dumontier, who dominated the early stages in Rally2, also lost an hour after his gas dried up and consequently trails Jean-Loup Lepan. Tommaso Montanari‘s race came to an end due to electrical issues on his Fantic XEF Rally 450, ruining a strong performance as he was running fifteenth in Rally2. Classmate Modestas Siliūnas completed 152 km before hitting the bottom of a dune and getting bounced upwards, landing on his handlebars; Siliūnas had been riding with shoulder pain following a Stage #2 crash, while his bike suffered from gearbox and clutch damage after the fifth day.

Most of the leaders concluded Thursday at Break Zone F, 476 kilometres into the stage for the FIA and 513 for FIM. Due to cars having higher fuel consumption, the Chrono Stage was shortened to 547 kilometres for the FIA classes from 584 km. These break zones are very rudimentary, offering just the bare necessities like water and military-style rations for them overnight before resuming on Friday morning.

Guerlain Chicherit described the Chrono Stage, the replacement for the two-stage Empty Quarter Marathon, as “like being hungover.”