SHAKEDOWN COMPLETE – RED BULL KTM ARE ALL SET FOR DAKAR 2022 Dakar Rally 2022 – Preview The three-man Red Bull KTM Factory Racing team of Matthias Walkner, Toby Price, and Kevin Benavides have successfully completed their pre-event shakedown and final administration tasks and are ready for the first stage of the 2022 Dakar Rally, which takes place tomorrow, January 1. Joining the three former race winners, KTM Factory Racing’s Danilo Petrucci will make his competitive rally debut. Celebrating its 44th edition in 2022, this year’s Dakar Rally will be held in the Middle East for the third consecutive year and cover a grueling total distance of 8,106 kilometers. Split into 12 full stages, day one of the event, held on January 1 and named Stage 1A, will see riders face a short, 19-kilometer timed Prologue held midway between the ceremonial start of the race in Jeddah and the first bivouac in Ha’il – a route that measures 609 kilometers.
Three decades ago, the Dakar Rally used to start from Paris, as it was dubbed Paris-Dakar Rally back then. The French capital was last used as a starting point for the Dakar two decades ago, the year when we had the first woman to win the Dakar Rally, Jutta Kleinschmidt. But let us go back another decade.
Rainy days
In 1969 Hans Muth was a designer at Ford, who were based in the Rhineland, and while he enjoyed the job the weather was rubbish. All of his friends told him he should move to Bavaria for the mountains and it helped that the local car company was on the up and up.
Before long Muth upped sticks to Munich and found himself as the Head of Interior Design for BMW’s car division. As a treat, he bought a cottage high up in the mountains and so he could get there, he bought one of those new-fangled 4x4 things (don’t worry – this will make sense later). Soon after though, his attention switched back to two wheels.
“Viva Argentina. Es historia”. Ten years ago there wasn’t a single Argentinian rider on the Dakar. A decade later Kevin Benavides became the first South American to win the Dakar in the elite motorcycle category.
Originally from Salta, a staple destination for rally raids in Argentina, the Monster Energy Honda Racing Team rider is part of the new generation of racers who fell in love with rally, after the arrival of the Dakar in South America in 2009.
Alongside Benavides’s success at the 2021 Dakar in Saudi Arabia, the Monster Energy Honda Rally Team scored a historic 1-2; with 2020 Dakar winner Ricky Brabec in P2 – something that hadn’t happened for Honda since 1987 with Cyril Neveu and Edi Orioli.