The Dakar Rally or simply "The Dakar", formerly known as the "Paris–Dakar Rally", is an annual rally raid organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation. Most events since the inception in 1978 were staged from Paris, France, to Dakar, Senegal. Security threats in Mauritania led to the cancellation of the 2008 rally, and events from 2009 to 2019 were held in South America. Since 2020, the rally has been held in Saudi Arabia. The event is open to amateur and professional entries, professionals typically making up about eighty percent of the participants.
Throughout its history, BMW cars and motorcycles have been successful in a range of motorsport activities. Apart from the factory efforts, many privateer teams enter BMW road cars in touring car racing. BMW also entered cars or provided engines in Formula One, Formula Two and sportscar racing. BMW is currently active in IMSA, the Isle of Man TT, the North West 200, the Superbike World Championship and the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters.
Hubert Auriol was a French professional off-road motorcyclist and auto racer competing in rally raid events. After retiring as a competitor, he served as the director of The Paris-Dakar rally. Auriol is notable for being the first competitor to win the Dakar rally on motorcycles and in automobiles. In 2012, Auriol was named an FIM Legend for his motorcycling achievements.
Ellen Lohr is a German race car driver. She currently competes in the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series, driving the No. 99 Chevrolet Camaro for Dexwet-df1 Racing in the Elite 1 class.
Gaston Rahier was a Belgian professional motocross racer. He competed in the Motocross World Championships from 1967 to 1979, most prominently as a member of the Suzuki factory racing team where he won three consecutive FIM 125cc Motocross World Championships. In 1977, Rahier was named the recipient of the Belgian National Sports Merit Award. After his motocross career, he became a successful Rally Raid competitor.
Nasser Salih Nasser Abdullah Al-Attiyah is a Qatari rally driver and sport shooter. He was the 2006 Production World Rally Champion, 2014 and 2015 WRC-2 champion, an 18 time Middle East Rally Champion, five times winner of the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies, and a five times Dakar Rally winner. His five victories in the Dakar Rally make him the only Middle Easterner and West Asian to win the competition more than once.
Rally raid is a type of off-road motorsport event for automobiles and motorcycles. Along with shorter baja rallies, rally raid constitutes cross-country rallying. Both the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) co-organise a common World Rally-Raid Championship featuring the same events for both types of vehicle.
Heinz Kinigadner is an Austrian former professional motocross racer. He competed in the Motocross World Championships from 1978 to 1988. Kinigadner is notable for being the first Austrian competitor to win an FIM motocross world championship. He won consecutive 250cc motocross world championships in 1984 and 1985. After his motocross career, he became a successful Rally Raid competitor. In 2016, Kinigadner was named an FIM Legend for his motorcycle racing achievements.
1997 Dakar Rally also known as the 1997 Paris–Dakar Rally was the 19th running of the Dakar Rally event. The rally started and finished in Dakar, taking in a loop including Niger and the Ténéré desert. Jutta Kleinschmidt became the first woman to win a stage of the Dakar Rally. Japanese driver, Kenjiro Shinozuka, won the car class and Stephane Peterhansel won his fifth motorcycle title.
The 1999 Dakar Rally, also known as the 1999 Granada–Dakar Rally was the 21st running of the Dakar Rally event. After a short prologue stage on New Year's Eve 1998, the race began in earnest on 1 January 1999 and ended on 17 January after 16 competitive stages. After the fifth stage, the overall rally leader was German driver, Jutta Kleinschmidt, who, in the 1998 rally, was the first woman to ever win a stage of the rally. The event was marked by a robbery on the 12th stage of the rally between Néma and Tichit in Mauritania of fifty competitors by armed men, in which vehicles, money and petrol were stolen. Rally co-ordinators decided to continue with the race. The rally was won by French driver Jean-Louis Schlesser. The motorcycle title was won by Richard Sainct, whilst the truck title went to Karel Loprais in a Tatra 815.
The 2000 Dakar Rally, also known as the 2000 Dakar–Cairo Rally, was the 22nd running of the Dakar Rally event. The event began on 6 January 2000 in Senegal and ended on 23 January in Cairo. It had been re-routed to avoid Mauritania following an armed robbery of competitors in the 1999 rally. Four stages of the rally scheduled to be held in Niger were cancelled following a reported terrorist threat. Competitors were airlifted from Niamey airport to Libya where the rally was restarted five days later at Sabha. The rally was won by French driver Jean-Louis Schlesser and his co-driver Henri Magne in a Schlesser-Renault buggy., with the motorcycle title going to BMW's Richard Sainct and the truck title to Kamaz's Vladimir Chagin.
The 2001 Dakar Rally, also known as the 2001 Paris–Dakar Rally, was the 23rd running of the Dakar Rally event. The format was revised to reduce the amount of airborne assistance to competitors in favour of assistance vehicles. The 2001 rally was 6,600 miles (10,600 km) long and began in Paris, France, on New Year's Day, passing through Spain, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Mali, before finishing at Dakar in Senegal. This was the last Paris-Dakar Rally that commenced and finished in the same locations as the original race. Jean-Louis Schlesser won the penultimate stage of the rally to take the lead but was penalised one hour for unsportsmanlike conduct. The rally was won by German Jutta Kleinschmidt, who became the first woman to win the event. The motorcycle class of the rally was won by Italian Fabrizio Meoni, with Karel Loprais winning the truck class.
2004 Dakar Rally also known as the 2004 Paris-Dakar Rally was the 26th running of the Dakar Rally event. The rally started in the Auvergne region of France, passing through Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania and Mali, and finishing Dakar in Senegal. This was the last time the rally ever visited France. The rally was won by the French team of Stéphane Peterhansel and Jean-Paul Cottret in a Mitsubishi; while the motorcycle class was won by Nani Roma of Spain on a KTM and the trucks class was won by Russians Vladimir Chagin, Semen Yakubov and Sergey Savostin in a Kamaz.
Maria Christina Thörner is a Swedish rally co-driver. Tina Thörner's career in motor sports started in 1990. Since then, she has won three FIA Ladies' World Rally Championship titles, a third and a second place overall in the Dakar Rally 1999 and 2006 and two FIA Cross-Country Rally World Cup wins in 2008 and 2009.
Laia Sanz Pla-Giribert, also known as Laia Sanz, is a Spanish sportswoman. She is a fourteen-time Women's Trial World Champion and ten-time Women's Trial European Champion in outdoor motorcycle trials.
Toby Joseph Price OAM is an Australian off-road and enduro motorcycle racing world champion. He lives in Gold Coast, Queensland, and rode for the KTM Off-Road Racing Team until October 2015. He now represents the Red Bull Factory KTM Rally Team.
Patricia Watson-Miller is a British motorbike rally raid rider, who was born and raised in Germany. She was able to win the ladies cup of the Dakar rally three times.
Cristina Gutiérrez Herrero is a Spanish dentist and rally raid driver. She became the first Spanish female car driver to finish the Dakar Rally in 2017 before winning the event in the T3 category in 2024. In 2021 she was the second woman to win a stage in Dakar Rally history. She participates in the Extreme E electric cross-country series, driving for Lewis Hamilton's Team X44. In 2021 she won the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies, becoming the first-ever female driver to win the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies. In 2022 she won the Extreme-E Championship alongside Sébastien Loeb in Lewis Hamilton's Team X44, making her the first Spanish woman to ever win it. In 2022 she was the first Spanish female to reach the podium of the Dakar Rally, being the third classified in the T3 category. In 2023 Dakar Rally she finished in 4th position after having many issues in the first week that prevented her from fighting for the victory. Nonetheless, she won the prologue of the Dakar Rally and the last stage which allowed her to finish in 4th position. In 2024, Cristina made history by winning the challenger category in the Dakar Rally, becoming only the second woman in history to achieve this feat in the world's toughest rally. This accomplishment follows Jutta Kleinschmidt victory in 2001, 23 years prior, as the Dakar Rally continues to become more and more professionalized. She is also the first Spanish woman to ever win at the Dakar Rally. She also holds four Dakar Rally stage wins.
Klara Augusta Linnéa Andersson is a Swedish rallycross driver who currently competes in the FIA World Rallycross Championship for the CE Dealer Team.
