[Auto] Prodrive on its Dakar rally racer

[EVIL BABY.]

The Prodrive-BRX (for Bahraini Rally Xtreme) team is based in Prodrive’s Banbury headquarters and consists of two cars: one driven by Frenchman Sébastien Loeb, nine times a World Rally Champion, the other by Spaniard Joan ‘Nani’ Roma, who has entered every Dakar since 1996 and won it both on a motorcycle (KTM, 2004) and in a car (Mini, 2014).

Roma has done most of Prodrive’s latest T1 development testing, at venues in the UK and Dubai. During November, he spent nearly two weeks at Millbrook test track in Bedfordshire, driving “harder than you’d go in the event, except by accident” trying to discover what would break first on the car under extreme treatment. The tests ended with some relatively minor wheel bearing issues and a propshaft failure (now fixed), plus a lot of plaudits for his engineering team about the handling and robustness of the new car.

Loeb is also pleased with the car’s sophisticated design and toughness (see interview, above right). Testing of back-up machinery is continuing while the two team cars get their last-minute fettling, and Prodrive’s team will fly to Jeddah over Christmas to begin the long campaign.

the 2021 Dakar will be one of the biggest ever staged: there are 75 cars, 42 trucks and 110 motorcycles entered from 19 countries. Including back-up vehicles, there are expected to be 679 vehicles and 15 helicopters on the course in total.

They will cover an all-new route that includes more than 3000 miles of competitive sections that entrants will never have seen before. It’s rumoured to include more varied driving terrain and more difficult navigation tests than in recent events and ends with a mammoth 320-mile ‘showdown’ competitive section on the penultimate day, where the organisers say the time differences between competitors “could be huge”.

The T1 is a purpose-built, steel-spaceframe coupé, similar in length to the Ford Focus but much taller, with a remarkably sleek body designed by former Aston Martin and Jaguar designer Ian Callum. The Dakar regulations allow both two-wheel-drive and four-wheel drive cars. Prodrive has chosen the latter for its innately greater traction under braking and acceleration, despite having to cope with a higher minimum dry weight (1850kg) plus curbs on engine power (400bhp), top speed (107mph) and suspension travel compared with competitive 2WD designs.The T1 project’s chief engineer, Paul Doe, says the event’s regulations are evolving in favour of 4x4s and may eventually outlaw 2WD designs. The team’s “marquee signing”, Loeb, is a seasoned Dakar campaigner but a new recruit to 4x4 Dakar cars, having driven a RWD Peugeot on the previous four events, scoring a best second place outright in 2017. Doe expects the T1 to handle more like a firmly suspended WRC car than the Peugeot buggy with its “gangly” suspension and near-unlimited wheel travel. “Ours is closer in feel to the rally cars of his earlier career,” says Doe. “I believe he will see that as an advantage.”