Richards on Prodrive's new Dakar challenge

Prodrive has a rich and illustrious history in motorsport. The British company's Subaru Imprezas were successful in the 1990s and early 2000s, and helped make Colin McRae and Richard Burns World Rally champions.

Earlier this year Prodrive announced that it had joined forces with the Kingdom of Bahrain to develop a new car to contest the 2021 Dakar Rally.

Autosport's colleagues at Motorsport.com Spain recently caught up with Prodrive founder and chairman David Richards to find out more about the project and the challenges ahead. Here is what he said.

How and when did this Dakar Rally project start?

David Richards: It started about January last year, 18 months ago.

Was Dakar a natural step for Prodrive?

DR: Well, it was one of the few remaining categories of motorsport that Prodrive has not competed in. The great thing about Dakar and technical regulations is the freedom of it. Most motorsport categories these days are fairly restrictive, and for us with the range of skills that we have at Prodrive it suits us perfectly to have a more open formula that we could develop the car from the ground up and be responsible for every aspect of it.

Did Ari Vatanen have anything to do with this project?

DR: No, only in the sense he has always encouraged me to do Dakar some time. He is a big fan of Dakar. Ari and I are still big friends and we speak a lot. He said: "You know, one day you've got to get Prodrive to go to Dakar."

What does the Dakar Rally mean for you?

DR: You see stories in motor racing of drivers talking about the Triple Crown, so winning the Monaco Grand Prix, the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. I look at all these events, and I think Dakar is up among the biggest motorsport challenges in the world.

There were some drivers, like Sebastien Loeb, that went there and didn't achieve any results, so it's one of those targets. You ask people why they climb mountains and they say 'because they are there'. And with Dakar it's one of those great motorsport achievements to be conquered.

"I've got no doubts we will be competitive but Dakar is a long event and anything can happen, so you have to be realistic about your chance of winning. But I would be disappointed if people do not look at us on the startline and say, 'That's a potential winner'" David Richards

You announced that the prototype will be a four-wheel-drive car. Did you decide this from the beginning or did you assess the two-wheel-drive option?

DR: We always had a plan for the 4x4. As soon as we knew the new technical regulations were going in this direction and with the petrol engine as well, that's when we started the designing process, so it's always been in our mind to be this way.

How is the technical development going? Has everything been built at Prodrive in Banbury?

DR: Everything is technically built in Banbury, but we have partnerships. For example, the transmission is a new one, because we are using SADEV, the same people that do the transmissions for most other Dakar cars, and they are very supportive. But in general terms, everything is being developed and designed out of Banbury.

What are your goals in the next months? Do you think it's possible to fight against Mini X-Raid and Toyota Gazoo from the beginning?

DR: When you go to a new category of motorsport with competitors that have lots of experience, you can't be complacent. You have to accept that there is a lot of learning to be done. We will be doing many thousands of kilometres of testing in the next six months.

When we get to the start of Dakar, we will have a car that we feel will be robust and well-tested. I've got no doubts we will be competitive but Dakar is a long event and anything can happen, so you have to be realistic about your chance of winning. But I would be disappointed if people do not look at us on the startline and say, 'That's a potential winner'.

Will the first proper tests happen in the summer?

DR: Yes, testing will start in August and run all the way through the autumn.

The driver market is a little barren. What kind of driver are you looking for?

DR: You are quite right, the driver market in this period is quite limited, so maybe it's an opportunity to look outside the conventional people we expect to see at the start of Dakar. But we've been talking, as you can expect, to most of the drivers and obviously we have a plan. We'll announce the drivers before we start testing.

Has Carlos Sainz been an option?

DR: Carlos has a great relationship with us since his time with us at Subaru. We all remember him with great affection and I see Carlos quite regularly. He's obviously a great friend of mine and Prodrive's.

Nani Roma has enormous experience in developing 4x4 cars, and has the sort of profile you're looking for...

DR: It's interesting because in Spain there are many good drivers for Dakar, not only in the cars, but also in bikes.

On a rally like Dakar it's better to have at least two chances than only one. Have you decided how many BRX T1s you will have at the start on 3 January?

DR: We will be running two or three cars.

We saw you last January in the Dakar bivouac. How was the experience for you?

DR: Obviously, there were lots of things about the first Dakar in Saudi Arabia that impressed me. The country itself, the terrain, was spectacular. But most importantly for me was the welcome we received from the local people there. It was quite extraordinary. Everywhere you went in the middle of the desert, in the middle of the countryside, local people come and say, 'We are really happy to see you here and welcome to our country'.

Has COVID affected your plans?

DR: It has delayed everything a little bit. We were due to make a press announcement back in April, but it has been postponed. We are about six weeks behind schedule at the moment, with people not being able to come to work and delays from suppliers in the main, but it's not impossible. In fact the engineers were telling me it's allowed them to revisit some of the aspects of the car that they wouldn't have spent a lot of time on, so I think it will be a better product as a result.

When do you plan to have the first car 100% built, and will you go testing straight away when it's ready?

DR: During the beginning of August, and we have a full test schedule where we start in the test tracks in England - MIRA or Millbrook - where you do just basic, installation tests, calibration tests. Still very locally, we go down to Wales for a week for the general handling testing and rough work testing, and then we are going to spend a couple of weeks in the South of France. I think we move to the Middle East in September and then all testing will be carried out there.