Preview: 2017 Dakar Rally

The 39th running of the world’s toughest off-road race, the 2017 Dakar Rally, will kick off with an opening ceremony on New Year’s Day, with action officially getting underway on January 2, 2017.

The event, which was won by an Australian for the first time ever earlier this year when Toby Price dominated the race to take the historic win, will this year add Paraguay to its list of host countries. Paraguay will become the 29th nation the gruelling event has traversed during its 38-year history.

In what the Dakar’s Sporting Director and five-time winner Marc Coma has called, “the toughest edition in the history of South American rally-raiding”, the race will be run over 13 days through three countries – Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina – and will see 146 motorcycles (from a total of 216 vehicles) navigate a total of 9000km over 12 stages.

Competitors will have only one rest day, which will be held in the Bolivian city of La Paz this year for the very first time. The 2017 event will also see the introduction of a new type of waypoint, which organisers say will demand even more precise navigation from competitors.

“The waypoints will be waypoint controls,” explained Coma.

“The sole function of the GPS will be to validate that the riders are on the right path. There will be six stages with over 400 kilometres and a lot of sand: seven of the 12 stages will test out riders’ skills in the dunes. There will also be six stages above a 3500 metre altitude and other ingredients in each country that will make it a tough race: heat and humidity in Paraguay, cold and altitude in Bolivia and temperatures over 40 degrees in Argentina.”

KTM has dominated the motorcycle category and has won every Dakar Rally held since 2001. Honda, which hasn’t claimed a Dakar victory since way back in 1989, says it has its best chance yet of taking the coveted trophy with Kevin Benavides, Joan Barreda and Paulo Gonçalves making up its 2017 Rally squad.

However, with Toby Price recently re-signing with the four-rider Austrian factory team alongside Briton Sam Sunderland, Austrian Matthias Walkner and Mexican off-road star Ivan Ramirez, combined with KTM’s associated Husqvarna Factory Racing Team riders Pablo Quintanilla and Pela Renetthe in the mix, the Japanese factory can't afford to put a foot wrong in preventing KTM from claiming its 16th consecutive Dakar title.