Bahrain Raid Xtreme (BRX) are in high spirits as they head into the final lead-up to the 2021 Dakar Rally, which takes place in Saudi Arabia from January 3 to 15, starting and finishing in Jeddah.
BRX, a joint venture between Mumtalakat and world-leading British motorsport business Prodrive, has been busy for much of the past couple of years developing the cars that will be taking on the challenge, and with the big event just weeks away, BRX team director and Prodrive founder and chairman David Richards, CBE, is looking forward to making a strong debut.
Richards has claimed six World Rally Championship titles, five Le Mans wins and experience leading successful teams in Formula 1. However, the Dakar is the challenge he has yet to undertake, and for Bahrain, BRX is the nation’s latest foray in motorsport.
BRX have the ultimate driver pairing of Nani Roma and Sebastien Loeb piloting the team’s two T1 cars. The T1 is a four-wheel drive (FWD) vehicle powered by a 3.5-litre turbocharged petrol V6 engine. It has been undergoing an intensive testing program over the past several weeks in the UK and Dubai, and Richards says that the feedback from Roma and Loeb has been tremendously encouraging.
“Both of them are very positive about the car,” Richards told TDT in an exclusive interview. “Sebastien describes it just like a World Rally car, FWD with a turbo which he is used to driving, albeit a little heavier and larger. “Nani has done a lot of the testing and has done a great job; he tells me in all the conditions it handles exceptionally, even the sand dunes in the different areas as well. He’s been very impressed by it. Very positive feedback from both the drivers.”
With decades of experience in various categories of motorsport, Richards understands the complications a team can face in their first appearance in a race such as the Dakar. He, therefore, admits that expecting a victory this year for BRX is “unusual”, but he is fully confident that they will be competitive.
“Nobody’s ever had a victory the first time out with a new car,” Richards explains. “New cars, inevitably in an event like this, turn up some problems you haven’t experienced during testing. I expect us to be competitive and I expect us to be very quick. The car has certainly proven that in testing. You need to do thousands and thousands of kilometres of testing to find all the little problems you are likely to encounter in an event. We’ve been in the UAE testing for two months now, we’ve done thousands of kilometres and they’ve experienced the usual such problems as you’d expect. We’ve made the changes, modified the cars as we’ve gone along, but when the event starts at the beginning of January, I’m sure we’ll encounter other issues that I’m sure we weren’t anticipating. It will be very unusual to expect a win first time out, but I fully expect us to be highly competitive. It’s a quick car.”
Richards is excited about taking on the unique Saudi terrain, which was showcased to the world for the first time in the previous edition of the Dakar held earlier this year. The course for next year is brand new and the most unforgiving one to date. Teams will be tested to the limit across 11 stages, spanning thousands of miles that will include dunes, desert and rocks. Alongside the all-new route, rally organisers have unveiled a set of new regulations, designed to increase the sporting challenge.
“Saudi has one of the most unique places in the world,” Richards says. “For having such diversity and ideal terrain for an event like Dakar—mountains, deserts, dunes—it’s a perfect venue for the event. “I’m very pleased to see that. My history in the Middle East goes back to 1976 when I organised the first rally in Kuwait. Shortly afterwards, I came to Bahrain the following year and organised an international rally in Bahrain. “So I’ve watched motorsport in the Middle East develop from the Grand Prix circuit in Bahrain to other events around the Gulf. Now watching Saudi Arabia open up is very exciting.” BRX’s equipment has already begun making its way to Jeddah, while the team members are scheduled to fly out after Christmas for the 2021 Dakar.
