2009 Dakar Rally – my summary

First of all congratulations to the Volkswagen team that has finally won the Dakar Rally after seven years! 

But has this really been a true Dakar Rally as we've known it and loved it for a long time? The first half of the rally was held on fast gravel tracks where topspeed has been the key to success. It got more difficult in fesh fesh holes. This is a very thin dust that reduces visibility much longer than ordinary sand grains that have been kicked up.This is a particular problem for private teams at the end of the field as the ruts get deeper an deeper. 

I believe that many drivers haven't seen much of the beautiful landscape owing to the dust. The navigation was challenging as you had to find the right gate in the cattle guards.

Very soon, it was evident that Mitsubishi has not yet been competitive with their new car and Diesel technology. So a single BMW kept four Volkswagen cars under pressure! Nasser Al-Attiyah was the lone fighter, navigated by Tina Thörner. They kept the pressure on VW and even lead the rally. Unfortunately, the BMW which was on the road to success was hampered by technical gremlins. A broken probe activated the emergency program of the engine. You simply can't tackle a dune like that. As a result, Nasser and Tina  deliberately ignored the dunes and were subsequently disqualified. Sven Quandt's team simply lacks the financial backing to develop a strong car for such long distances. This is no surprise if you bear in mind that he's got only about 10 per cent of Volkswagen's budget. But until mid-event, it made us believe that David stood a chance of winning against Goliath. A superb performance of both Nasser and Tina.

Afterwards, the rally was rather boring for spectators as Volkswagen was the only remaining favourite. A 1-2-3 win seemed to be safe until Carlos Sainz put his Race Touareg in a huge ditch. Unbelievable, especially as he had an advantage of nearly 30 minutes so there was no need to attack. But it seems likely that he wanted to win the remaining stages instead of focusing on overall victory. But to be honest, I didn't understand Volkswagen's strategy in that respect either. Thus Giniel de Villiers suddenly had chances to win again which he had actually lost owing to a false navigation by Dirk von Zitzewitz. But now he used his chance and fulfilled the big dream for himself and Dirk. Congratulations to both of them. Giniel has really deserved it, he hasn't made a mistake.

This edition of the rally was certainly difficult – but was it more difficult than the previous editions? I have been involved in 18 Dakar rallies and I think it was by no means the most difficult Dakar Rally. The overall time of just 48 hours for the stages was pretty short. During my Dakar victory in 2001 I was sweating 72 hours behind the steering wheel until I had reached the finish line in Dakar. In the past, there have always been legs when only five to ten competitors have reached the bivouac until the next morning. The rest of them spend a night in the dunes. There haven't been star quality hotels and McDonalds restaurants. Regardless of the competitors' sleeping hours, off road legs of 800 kilometres were part of the game. Today, difficulties cause the shortening or even cancellation of the next leg. One fifth of the stage kilometres scheduled for this year have been cancelled as a result. Instead of 5.591 kilometres, the competitors only tackled 4.429 kilometres.

Whatever your opinion, this edition of the rally is now history and we can only hope that the Dakar Rally will return to Africa one day. If not, Hubert Auriol's new „Africa Race“ event might turn into a good alternative.