Five biggest stories from 2024 Dakar Rally

Monster Energy Honda rider, Ricky Brabec, used his Dakar experience to win what was largely regarded as a brutal race in 2024. He posted his worst finish in the opening prologue session – an entirely deliberate move in order to determine a starting position that wasn’t too close to the front.

After four top-five positions in the opening four stages, Brabec called on the services of teammate Adrien van Beveren to occasionally guide the way after hitting the top of the leaderboard on Stage 6, he pulled the pin with five to go and never relinquished it.

Hero rider Ross Branch was the only rider capable of spoiling Brabec’s party in the end, and with no one to call on to assist following the withdrawal of his teammate Joaquim Rodrigues during the opening stage, it was an impressive performance from the Botswana rider who recorded seven top-five stage finishes, including two wins, to end the rally just 10m53sec behind the American. It was the first time an Indian bike has ridden onto a Dakar podium. Van Beveren rounded out the rostrum.  

Ricky Brabec raced for a total of 51 hours and 30 minutes to loft the Dakar trophy, but spare a thought for last-placed finisher Saudi rider Alnoumesi Hami who battled the terrain for a total of 200 hours and three minutes!

The 46th Dakar Rally – the fifth in Saudi Arabia – consisted of a total of 8000km including 4700km of timed specials, but it was the opening stage which caught competitors unaware, and no doubt struck fear into the hearts of the rookies. Riding over large volcanic rocks, reigning world champ Luciano Benavides described it as impossible, while Aussie Daniel Sanders said he felt like he’d ridden five days in one after the 414km timed special. The shortest day came on Stage 5 (115km) just before the Chrono 48H, introduced this year for the first time and with similar constraints to a marathon stage. It was a single 532km timed special held over days five and six with eight bivouacs in place depending on where the riders finished.

While always there or thereabouts, both Toby Price and Daniel Sanders failed to find any real momentum capable of fighting for a podium finish after two weeks of racing. Between some navigational errors and some mechanical misfortunes, two-time Dakar winner Price’s best result came on Stage 6 when he finished second behind Van Beveren.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us, that's for sure. I’m just making too many mistakes myself,” he said after his third-place finish in Stage 5. “We’re trying to stay in the race as much as we can. We gotta try and play a little bit of a catch-up game now and we’ll see how it goes.” Price ended the rally fifth overall, some 45 minutes behind Brabec.

Compatriot Daniel Sanders’ second-place finish in the prologue was as good as it got for the GasGas rider who then scored a 12th, 13th and 20th in the second, third and fourth stages, finding himself almost 40 minutes in arrears to start Stage 5. Six top-10 finishes in the remaining stages left the Australian eighth overall, 1h12min behind Brabec at the finish line.

Recovering from a broken shoulder and a broken scaphoid as a result of two seperate crashes in the back end of 2023, Austrian Tobias Ebster wasn’t even sure he’d make the start line of the 2024 Dakar Rally. The rookie entered the unassisted category on his KTM, his worst day came on Stage 4 where he finished 42nd, but he made up for it the following day when finished ninth and became the first Original by Motul rider to score a top-10 stage finish. In the end, he finished a credible 20th overall, almost 6h47mins behind Brabec after the gruelling two-week event.

“I’m here at the finish for my first Dakar as winner of Original Motul and in the top 20 overall, best rookie, well, it’s a big one, it’s a really big one,” he said. “Three months ago, I had surgery on my shoulder and everybody thought I was done. Two months ago, I had surgery on my wrist and everybody thought I was done, but I said, ‘no I’m going to keep fighting and I’m going to be there’. The most difficult thing in the rally? Everything.”

You’ve got to go back to 1993 when Yamaha locked out the podium with Stephane Peterhansel, Thierry Charbonnier and and Jordi Arcarons to find the last time a European manufacturer wasn’t on the podium at the end of the Dakar Rally. KTM’s dominance began in the early 2000s, claiming the number-one spot for for 18 years between 2001 and 2019, before it was halted by Honda’s Ricky Brabec when he won his first Dakar.

For 2024, there were four factory Honda riders in the top six, with the Red Bull KTM pairing of Kevin Benavides and Toby Price earning fourth and fifth. As well as Husqvarna (Luciano Benavides, 7th) and GasGas (Daniel Sanders, 8th), the next best manufacturer was Sherco who scored an 11th place with Harith Noah on board.