Down to business

All the testing, development work and more testing finally came to an end and the business of racing got underway as the teams congregated on the shores of the Red Sea for the start of the 45th Dakar Rally. With the prologue set down for New Year’s Eve, there was precious little time for celebration or working on lists of resolutions for the coming year as the final preparations for carried out on the starting order for the race proper decided across the prologue course.

Held over a 13km timed course, each of the category contestants battled for the best possible time to determine starting order for the first stage of the actual race. Some big names fell by the wayside, while others stamped their authority on the event with a defiant run of speed.

Although with two weeks of the toughest off-road competition ahead, winning the prologue was essentially just a toe on the water, it was nevertheless a loud signal to the competition when Mattias Ekström stormed home to set the fastest time and cement ‘pole’ position for the start of the race.

The Swede’s fastest time was a tremendous opening for the the Audi Sport tea, but even more impressive was the fact that all three of the Audi RS Q e-tron E2s finished in the top six, with Mr Dakar, Stéphane Peterhansel in third and Carlos Sainz in sixth.

It was the perfect start to what will only be Audi’s second start in the gruelling rally-raid event that is considered the toughest in the world, and in doing it with an electrified drivetrain only makes the achievement that much more impressive.

“It’s always nice to start in a good way, but of course the day is long and the rally is even longer,” said a philosophical Mattias Ekström after dominating there prologue times. The youngest member of the Audi Sport driver team and the one with the least experience at Dakar, Ekström nevertheless brings enormous experience and success from everything from DTM to World Rallycross – having dominated both motorsport disciplines in the past.

At the other end of the spectrum is 14-time Dakar winner, teammate Stéphane Peterhansel, whose exploits on both two and four wheel have earned him the nickname of Mr Dakar.

“The race is on. You put your helmet on at the start and you know you are about to be launched into the thick of it. We finished first, third and sixth. Personally, I did better than I expected. The course was more favourable to pure rally or rally-cross drivers, which I'm not, so it was a good result. I'm not used to coming up with strategies, but I'll be in a good position to pick my starting order for tomorrow.”

Now, some 8500 kilometres of the harshest desert on the planet awaits the teams over the next two weeks to see who will triumph in the 2023 running of the world’s toughest rally.

Watch the 2023 Dakar Prologue highlights here.