The Empty Quarter

It’s the biggest sand desert in the world and particularly daunting proposition for all of the competition in the Dakar Rally. Saudi Arabia’s aptly named Empty Quarter – the Rub’ al Khasi – covers a massive 650,000 square kilometres and boasts dunes that can tower 250 metres. The challenges for competitors on two and four wheels are obvious, not just in negotiating the massive walls of sand and avoiding hazards like getting stuck or rocketing off the sometimes sheer backs of dunes. But the issue of getting lost looms just as large as the driving challenges and playing strategy coming into the next 48 hours is an important part of the race, with no one wanting the start the next stage.

For that reason, many leading competitors, the Audi Sport drivers amongst them, relaxed the pace ever so slightly, aiming for a more favourable starting position. Mr consistency this stage, Mattias Ekström, may not have been pushing as hard as he could, but still managed to improve his overall standings to finish Stage 5 up a position in fourth overall.

Carlos Sainz and co-driver Lucas Cruz dropped well back in the Stage 5 running to finish in 15th, the result seeing them slip to third in the outright standings, but the result ensured a more favourable starting position for the gruelling next two days in the Empty Quarter.

“We need to check a couple of things in the car, but for the strategy, you know we will see in the next couple of days if we were correct or not,” Sainz said at the end of Stage 5.

The French Audi duo of Stéphane Peterhansel and Edouard Boulanger adopted a similar strategy, running in the top five for most of the stage before easing off on the pace towards the end. Despite this approach they still managed to gain two positions in the overall standings to finish sixth overall.

“So we started with not already full attacked and did a medium time,” Peterhansel said of the team’s strategy going into the 48 hour chronos stage. “We’re back now in the Empty Quarter and this place can be a little bit scary. It’s really beautiful but it can also be really dangerous,” said the 14-time Dakar winner.

The format for the next 48 hours will see the competitors almost completely self reliant and having to spend the night in the dunes without team support. With effectively a curfew of 4pm nominated, each competitor will have to halt their progress once the curfew is reached and proceed to the nearest of six rest areas where they will be given the bare essentials for camping overnight. Isolated from the outside world, they will not know how their fellow competitors have gone through the day or indeed where they themselves sit in the running. Come sun up and they are off again, looking to leave the Empty Quarter in one piece and with their vehicles intact as the Dakar reaches its halfway point.