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Timetables for each stage of the Dakar 2020

The provisional departure and arrival times for each of the 12 stages of the 42nd edition of the Dakar, which will begin on 5 January, are already known.

Five hundred seventy-two participants are scheduled to take the start in Yeda (Saudi Arabia) on January 5 to face the 42nd edition of the Dakar Rally.

The 129 motorbikes, 13 quads, 59 cars, 36 SxS, and 45 competing trucks, in addition to the 292 assistance vehicles, boarded Le Havre (Normandy) in early December on their way to the Asian country and arrived ten days later, after passing the first technical checks.

12 stages in 13 days, with a rest, will compose the tour of the first edition of the rally in Saudi Arabia, which takes over after 10 years in South America. The 5,000 timed kilometers of the more than 7,500 that will travel the runners will decide the winner.

Less than two weeks before the official departure, the provisional starting and arrival times for each category and stage are known, which could undergo last-minute changes depending on the needs of the organization and which we will be warning about.

Video: the hilarious gifts among the F1 drivers

One more year, Formula 1 again organized an ‘invisible friend’ among the riders of the grill, so that each one would give a gift to another anonymously, without being able to repeat recipient. The pilot who received the gift had to guess who was sending it to him, and, as you can see in the video below, the laughter multiplied. Some cracks!

The day Senna tried an IndyCar car, and impressed

Ayrton Senna knew that the 1993 F1 season could end up being a big disappointment.

His McLaren team had lost the Honda engines, and the triple champion knew that the Ford customer engine would be insufficient to defeat the Williams-Renault of his rival, Alain Prost.

Senna was shuffling options, and she wanted to feel what an IndyCar was without the electronics that characterized the F1 machinery in the 1990s. And, of step, press a little of your computer.

Nigel Beresford, currently technical director of Dragon Racing in Formula E, was Senna’s engineer that day and narrated to Motorsport.com the story of what happened on December 10, 1992.

“We had planned to test the new Penske PC22 for 1993 for three days,” Beresford said.

“The first of these was held at the West Firebird Raceway, a small circuit of 1’77 kilometers. We had a 1992 Penske to compare with the new one.”

The dream of life: father and daughter, together in Dakar

The passion for the engine runs through the veins of all the family members to limits that look like film. Manuel and his wife, Pilin Vázquez, ventured on their way to the North Pole when she was pregnant with Monica, their first daughter, aboard an Opel Corsa. An adventure that six years ago they all repeated together, also with Marta, the little one of the family, in a Volvo, sleeping in snowsuits and starting the car from time to time so as not to freeze.

Manuel has competed 12 times in the Dakar, all in Africa. It was also registered for 2008, the only one that has been canceled since 1979 and forced ASO to change continent to South America. In the third era of the rally, after his passage to Saudi Arabia, the Conquest will fulfill the dream of his life: running with his daughter Monica, who will debut at the rally. Both will form part of the soldiers’ structure and compete with the BV2 two gasoline motor wheels (#364).