2012 Dakar Rally

[kober]

The ASO have just informed about the closing of car/truck enrolment for 2012 Dakar. Although the official starting list will be announced on 8th November, there are already a few top "squads" (more or less) confirmed for the rally:

X-Raid's Mini All4:
- Peterhansel/Cottret
- Roma/Perin
- Holowczyc/Fortin
- Nowickij/Schulz
- dos Santos/Fiuza

X-Raid's BMW X3:
- Garafulic/Picard

Overdrive's Toyota Hilux:
- de Villiers/von Zitzewitz
- Vos/Howie
- Terranova/Cruz

Mistubishi Lancer:
- Spinelli/Haddad

I'm looking forward to yet another great event, this time from Mar Del Plata, AR to Lima, PE

[BertMk2]

Interesting. I thought there would be some Touaregs (private entries) - I suppose they may pop up in the official starting list. It's good news for the event that they've filled up the places in all classes ahead of the closing date though - there still seems to be strong competitor interest in the event.

[NaBUru38]

It's cool to see Toyota back with a properly funded team.

The Dakar rally left Buenos Aires city because the local government is opposite from the national government.

[kober]

Originally Posted by kober

X-Raid's Mini All4:
- Peterhansel/Cottret
- Roma/Perin
- Holowczyc/Fortin
- Nowickij/Schulz
- dos Santos/Fiuza

X-Raid's BMW X3:
- Garafulic/Picard

Two more X-Raid's BMWs:
- Mironenko/Lebedev
- Schott/Schmidt

A total of eight cars! Quite a fleet

[Mekola]

The Argentinian Touring Cars stars trio of Norberto Fontana, Emiliano Spataro and Juan Manuel Silva will be too in the 2012 edition. They entered in the Dakar last year.

[Ferrari333SP]

Hope Robby Gordon comes back this race, hopefully with an even more sorted out Hummer.

[Carsandmotorracing]

Love the Dakar, motorsport has no offseason!

[FIRE]

With no major manufacturer involvement I expect a more open rally.
Anyone having the full entrylist? Could't find it on the Dakar website.


New toy of De Rooy:




source: Toine van Oorschot

Looks like an oversized Unimog. Big difference with the previous truck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXoTU...ature=youtu.be

They will enter two of these trucks (Gerard de Rooy and Hans Stacey). Miki Biasion, Pep Vila Roca and Jo Adua are driving the other race trucks of De Rooy.

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by Mekola

The Argentinian Touring Cars stars trio of Norberto Fontana, Emiliano Spataro and Juan Manuel Silva will be too in the 2012 edition. They entered in the Dakar last year.

Does the Argentinian team return with their Subaru Forrester?

[kober]

Originally Posted by FIRE

Anyone having the full entrylist? Could't find it on the Dakar website.

The full list will be published on Tuesday.

[Truckosaurus]

The Dakar is always a good start to the motoring year.

Was just googling for more info on the new De Rooy truck, their new website goes live tomorrow (7th) => http://www.dakar-derooy.com/2011/

[rallycrossnl]

I said Jump!

[kurski]

I think in Dakar rallies should also be involved several, former WRC drivers. Sainz, McRae, Vatanen, Kankkunen, Saby and others we have seen in past years with. New car manufacturers should also be involved more.

[Truckosaurus]

Originally Posted by Truckosaurus

Was just googling for more info on the new De Rooy truck, their new website goes live tomorrow (7th) => http://www.dakar-derooy.com/2011/

http://www.dakar-derooy.com/2012/

[kurski]

Starting List Dakar Rally 2012

Cars: [ CLICK ] | Trucks: [ CLICK ] | Bikes: [ CLICK ] | Quads: [ CLICK ]

[bludvl_x19]

As merely a casual viewer of Dakar, what happened to the factory teams, Mitsubishi and Volkswagen for two examples?

[Ferrari333SP]

Interesting, only one Hummer for Robby Gordon next year, versus having two, and even three, the last couple of years. Hopefully having all resources concentrating on one vehicle can improve his performance.

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by bludvl_x19

As merely a casual viewer of Dakar, what happened to the factory teams, Mitsubishi and Volkswagen for two examples?

Volkswagen no longer has the works team - they're concentrating on their WRC entry. Mitsubishi I guess pulled out for financial reasons (much like they did with the WRC)

[rallycrossnl]

I hope this link works for you outside .nl
http://www.rtl.nl/xl/#/u/7e38b504-de...-f6559b5d2ad8/
Video, in dutch, of the RTL GP Dakar PreProloog at the Eurocircuit, Valkenswaard, the Netherlands. Pity they don't show the RX demo.

[TrueBlueFlyer]

I grew up watching the Paris - Dakar Rally from Ukraine... it was so cool to see Kamaz racing, heh

Looking forward to watching this, although I never seem to catch it on Speed channel in the US now. So YouTube it is.

[kober]

Looks like the 2011 winner is back, surprisingly in a Hummer, with Lucas Cruz (2010 winner) as the co-driver.

[NaBUru38]

Great news! Without the top drivers from the past editions, the Dakar would lose attractive to most Latin American fans.

[kober]

Originally Posted by kober

Overdrive's Toyota Hilux:
- de Villiers/von Zitzewitz
- Vos/Howie

Actually, de Villiers/von Zitzewitz's and Vos/Howie's Imperial Toyota South Africa Team Hiluxes will be only logistically supported by Overdrive, which will run other four cars on their own:

Overdrive's Toyota Hilux:
- Terranova/Grider
- Alvarez/Graue

Overdrive's VW Amarok:
- Ogorodnikov/Zhiltsov
- Yacopini/Jaenisch

[FIRE]

So the Overdrive cars started as Nissans, after that VWs and now they are Toyota's.

[Ferrari333SP]

I'm seriously excited to see how Nassar does in the Hummer; hopefully his Qatari sponsorship can bring in some extra money to the team, allowing them to possibly acquire higher quality parts, if that's possible this late in the game. He's a highly talented and aggressive driver, so it'll be really interesting to see how he performs in the Hummer compared to the competing BMW's.