How Prodrive plans to use trial by Dakar to spur it to victory

Despite its recent relocations, the Dakar Rally remains one of motorsport’s most brutal endurance events; an event that requires a fair portion of luck just to reach the finish. It’s one of the last great motorsport adventures, a 7,646km marathon across the treacherous Saudi Arabian desert.

To conquer the Dakar is a monumental feat and to achieve glory at your first attempt is extremely rare - as Prodrive discovered with its Bahrain Raid Xtreme (BRX) project in January. Such a trial has ensured work to tame next year’s event has already started in earnest.

“The Dakar Rally is the hardest race in the world today, so that means when a new team arrives it is really hard,” says BRX driver Nani Roma, a Dakar winner on both two and four wheels whose most recent triumph came with Mini in 2014. “We are lucky that I have found a team that has a huge passion for motorsport. They are clever guys and this is important.”

Synonymous with success in the World Rally Championship, winning 47 rallies, three drivers’ and constructors’ crowns in 19 years operating the factory Subaru team, Prodrive knows how to win in the harshest of environments. But it is desperate to add the Dakar to its glittering list of achievements, which began in the harsh terrain of the Middle East Rally Championship in 1984.

Outlining its desire for Dakar success, the organisation has embarked on a multi-year commitment in conjunction with the Kingdom of Bahrain, with a pair of its own designed-and-built T1 cars. Its driver line-up further emphasised the seriousness of the project, with nine-time WRC champion (and male driver for the Prodrive-run X44 Extreme E squad) Sebastien Loeb joining Roma.

The quest to tackle this year’s Dakar began back in 2019. Prodrive took a blank piece of a paper and went about creating an all-new 3.5-litre turbo-charged T1 Dakar racer from scratch. After months of development work, played out behind the scenes of a global pandemic, the BRX team’s Dakar debut proved to be a challenging one that highlighted just how tough the event is to conquer for a new team with a brand-new car.

#305 Bahrain Raid Xtreme: Sebastien Loeb, Daniel Elena

Photo by: Bahrain Raid Xtreme team

Dakar dishes out a tough initiation

Loeb, whose second-place finish in 2017 stands as his best result in four previous attempts with Peugeot, endured his very own trial by Dakar as Saudi’s harsh terrain took its toll on his BRX machine. The Frenchman was beset by issues, his first major setback arriving on the fourth stage when he was hit with a five-minute penalty for speeding in a controlled zone, triggering a tirade at officials. In the following stage, he suffered several punctures and got lost in the desert, leaving he and co-driver Daniel Elena almost an hour down on the leaders.  

A broken suspension arm followed on Stage 6, with any hopes of a quick fix ending when the truck arrived with the incorrect replacement part – two right suspension arms instead of one right and one left. It forced Loeb to wait a total of eight hours until the correct replacement part was delivered, the actual repair only taking 20 minutes.

More mechanical pain arrived in Stage 7 with a damaged bearing and he became stranded in Stage 8, where he eventually retired, after suffering two punctures in the first 80km when his BRX1 was equipped with only one spare tyre and three working brake calipers.

"I think not in the history of Dakar not one team has made this result in and create a new car in such a short space of time. It is really amazing" Nani Roma

“For sure we learned a lot of things,” Loeb said, summing up his tribulations. “I think the team did an incredible job debriefing all of the things that went well and went wrong in this Dakar. We know we have some things to change to try to optimise the performance for next year.”

Team-mate Roma encountered navigational challenges of his own during the event, but his run was far less haphazard than Loeb’s. He ended the event fifth, although some three hours and 21 minutes adrift of rally winner Stephane Peterhansel's X-raid Mini.

“I think really nobody believed that [we could finish fifth], the first year it is amazing,” says Roma.

#311 Bahrain Raid Xtreme: Nani Roma

Photo by: Bahrain Raid Xtreme team

“The guys continued to believe and work. The car touched the sand for the first time on 2 November and two months later we start the Dakar. It is incredible the job the team has already made.

“I think not in the history of Dakar [has] one team made this result in creating a new car in such a short space of time, it is really amazing. It was unlucky that Seb did not finish, we did a great job.”

Harsh lessons being put into practice

The deficit to the winner, coupled by the problems with punctures and navigation, sparked a month-long in-depth internal review to ensure no stone is left unturned for the team's second Dakar attempt next year. Six months on and Prodrive is putting what is has learned into practice, while Loeb and Roma have also made significant changes.

“It is a very analytical process,” says Prodrive chairman and Bahrain Raid Xtreme Team Director, David Richards. “We go into every little detail and every person is scrutinised as to the area they are responsible for in technical terms across the car from top to bottom, to individuals as well regarding how we all performed in our different roles.” 

As a result, the BRX Hunter is undergoing a re-design of sorts that includes changes to the suspension, bodywork and wheels. A series of regulation changes by the FIA and Dakar organisers the ASO will allow the 4x4 vehicles to have a 2.30m-wide chassis (instead of the current two metres), 350mm of suspension travel (compared to the current 280mm) and crucially to the size of wheels that the buggies have had up to now (37 inches in diameter, compared to the 32 inches 4x4s had this year).

“One of the fundamental problems we had this year was with punctures and clearly that is outside of our control to a certain extent, but it was to do with the size of the wheel and the tyre,” says Richards. “The FIA and ASO have now agreed a larger tyre next year, which will put us on an equal footing with the buggies that had an advantage over us this year.

“We are having to redesign a lot of the car around that now; the suspension, the wheel, tyre and the bodywork. There will be transmission changes as well and all sorts of things. We will start that in July - there will be a very intense test programme and then we will go into a few events at the end of this year to test it in real conditions.”

#305 Bahrain Raid Xtreme: Sebastien Loeb, Daniel Elena

Photo by: Bahrain Raid Xtreme team

While Prodrive has been busy improving its Dakar challenger, Loeb and Roma have sought to solve their navigational woes by teaming up with new co-drivers.

With an electronic road book handed to Dakar competitors every morning before the start of each stage, demands on the navigators are very different to the WRC. After 23 years together, Loeb has split with Daniel Elena and brought experienced rally raid co-driver Fabian Lurquin into the fold, while Roma is also set to announce a new co-driver in the coming days.

“We are having to redesign a lot of the car around [the changes to the tyre size] now, the suspension, the wheel, tyre and the bodywork around this area, there will be transmission changes as well and all sorts of things" David Richards

“It was not an easy thing to do and was not an easy choice,” says Loeb. “I was with [Elena] for 23 years and we had some incredible and great moments together. But I think the team tries to do its best to solve all the little problems we had [in order] to perform next year and I think on my side I needed to do the same.

“With this new regulation, this change of terrain and road books with the electronic system you get only in the morning before the start, it is very complicated for a crew like us coming from the WRC by not having this big experience of cross-country rallies.”

Fresh competition adds to the challenge

Although better prepared for its second attempt, the challenges will continue in 2022 as BRX will square up against a formidable force returning to rallying scene in 1980s Group B powerhouse Audi.

The marque behind the 1983 and 1984 WRC title-winning Quattro is planning a factory-supported assault on the event with an electric car using MGUs from the Formula E challenger. The as-yet-unnamed car’s drivetrain will include an in-house battery design that is recharged by a combustion engine derived from Audi’s now-defunct Class One DTM programme.

Mattias Ekström, Emil Bergkvist, Lucas Cruz, Carlos Sainz, Stéphane Peterhansel, Édouard Boulanger, Audi Sport

Photo by: Audi Sport

Audi has been developing its Dakar weapon for more than a year now and has not scrimped on its driver line-up, signing 14-time Dakar winner Peterhansel to partner three-time winner Carlos Sainz Sr and long-time marque favourite Mattias Ekstrom. Its involvement will only add yet more prestige to the 2022 event and is a clear sign that Dakar is becoming a new battleground for manufacturers.

Richards agrees. “The fact that Audi, that has dominated Le Mans and won the WRC many times, have now decided they are coming to Dakar, I think it speaks volumes,” he says.

With much heeded lessons learned ahead of Prodrive’s second tilt, plus increased expectations and new competition coming to the fore, next year’s event could turn out to be even tougher than its first foray.

“The second one is harder than the first one,” reckons Roma. “The first one, it is new, the team is new and maybe you can make more mistakes and have issues.

“In the second year we expect that we will work much harder now the team knows the race more. I am sure we have a much more competitive car and now we must continue.

“I said to David [Richards] in the beginning that our goal is to win this race. I am sure we will be much more competitive and I am sure we will fight in the podiums and try to win.”

Bahrain Raid Xtreme team group photo

Photo by: Bahrain Raid Xtreme team