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Jeddah
The last day of administrative checks and technical scrutineering prior to the start of Dakar 2022 saw a visit to Jeddah’s impressive King Abdallah Stadium by some of the race favourites.
The King Abdullah Sports City is a multiuse stadium and sports city located 60 kilometres north of Jeddah and provides the City with a world class football venue – home to Jeddah’s two top teams and regularly hosts matches of the Saudi Arabian national team.
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For the first time in 10-years, since the start in Mar del Plata in Argentina, the Dakar event will begin on its traditional start date of January 1st. Odds-on favourite, after his victory in last year’s edition of the race, Stéphane Peterhansel is faced with new challenges in 2022. Peterhansel, along with Carlos Sainz and race of champions Mattias Ekström from Swedish, has been recruited by Audi to participate in the first alternativedrive vehicle with its RS Q e-tron.
The Toyota team of Al-Attiyah, De Villiers, Al-Rahji and Ten Brinke form a fourpronged charge in Hiluxes, bolstered this year by a rule change which will enable them to run wider tyres and increased suspension travel.
In fact, there are a number of strong contenders for Dakar 2022 podium finishes including the likes of Sébastien Loeb, ‘Nani’ Roma, ‘Orly’ Terranova, Jakub Przygońsk, Denis Krotov, Sebastián Halpern, Martin Prokop, Mathieu Serradori, Cyril Despres, Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi, Christian Lavieille & Johnny Aubert and Guerlain Chicherit. Unfortunately, there’s only room for 10 at the top!
KING ABDULLAH SPORTS CITY
