Pictures by Flavien Duhamel / Red Bull Content Pool
Text by Mike Charopka

The first half of the 48-Hour Chrono Stage ended today, and the participants reached one of the designated remote bivouacs. They will sleep in tents, eat military ratios, and try to have a good time around the campfire, but not everyone. Some of them will work possibly through the night.

Ford vs. Dacia

As the teams battled through the treacherous dunes, the spotlight fell on two new contenders—Ford and Dacia—bothdebuting ambitious entries and determined to dominate.

Two new teams brought two new cars into the race. Dacia and Ford drive the all-new Dacia Sandrider and Ford Raptor T1+. The crews behind the wheel are stars and legends. The rivalry promised to be uncompromised from the beginning—and it really is.

The Prologue and First Stage went smoothly for Ford and Dacia. Experienced pilots and navigators strategically adjusted their positions before the challenging 48-Hour Chrono Stage. But the second stage brought unpleasant surprises for some of them.

WRC nine-time champion Sébastien Loeb experienced an electric failure. His cooling fans cut out one by one during the stage, and the dunes worsened his situation. Despite the help from his teammate Cristina Gutiérez, the Frenchman had to stop at the top of every dune and let his motor cool down. 

The team was aware of the possible problem. Before the race, Dacia even tried to address it in a testing area in England. But alas, the efforts were insufficient. 

Dirtfish.com cites the team principal of the Dacia Sandriders, Tiphanie Isnard: “We are waiting for more details, but we think we have identified an electronic issue,” she said – “It is a tough diagnosis to make without telemetry or engineers on site to carry out our processes, but Sébastien managed to get going again. He is still in the race and that is the main thing. Hats off to Cristina [Gutiérrez] and [navigator] Pablo [Moreno Huete] who provided their assistance in this team effort.”

On the other hand, the Spaniard Carlos Sainz from the M-Sport Ford team also made a mistake. The team principal, Matthew Wilson, explained that crew #225 drove in front of the peloton and opened the route. They didn’t notice a sharp dune at some moment and rolled over it. 

According to Dirtfish.com, the M-Sport Ford Wilson said: “Mitch [Guthrie Jr] managed to pull him back onto his wheels and then he was stopped for a while to move some damaged parts and that type of thing. Hopefully from what we can see and what we’ve heard it’s more just cosmetic damage than anything structural and it looks like he’s been running at a pretty reasonable pace, nearing a full pace after that [crash]. The main thing really is to get him back here tomorrow. It looks like he’s lost around an hour, which is a lot, but this is stage two of the Dakar – there’s a long way to go.“

Both crews were able to reach the rest areas, where they could rest and try to solve the problems with their cars.

Power Start of the Americans in SSV

Brock Heger, with his Polaris, stayed at the top after the first Half of the 48-Hour Chrono Stage. The crew of Sara Price and Sean Berriman experienced some setbacks.

Cars are Stable

Seth Quintero from Toyota Gazoo Racing reached the most distant bivouac possible and still demonstrated a strong performance. Corbin Leaverton is unoffically sixth.

Bikes

In bikes, Americans Skyler Howes and Ricky Brabec from Monster Energy Honda HRC are fighting for top positions against Australian Daniel Sanders and Botswanian Ross Branch, regardless of the dunes, stones, road book glitches, and 48-Hour Chrono Stages. The fight is fierce, and the intrigue is high.

As the sun sets on the first half of the 48-Hour Chrono, the rally continues to test endurance, strategy, and resilience. With drama already unfolding, the road ahead promises even greater challenges.

You can follow the live updates of the rankings through the official Dakar Live Timing, which is available here.