WATCH: Dakar rider’s bike abruptly shatters into multiple pieces while racing

The Dakar Rally is an annual event held across desert terrain in Saudia Arabia, with different vehicles driven by drivers across all racing series.

WATCH: Dakar rider’s bike abruptly shatters into multiple pieces while racing

The Dakar Rally

The Dakar Rally is a prestigious event held each year with drivers competing from various classes of motorsport in defined sections of vehicles. The rally is held with stages, as driver who qualify move on to the next stage to try and win the rally.

The rally is not unknown to have bizarre crashes, with the unpredictable and uneven terrain being a huge factor in the outcome of the races. In the 11th stage of the rally, Spanish rider’s Francisco Gómez Pallas’s bike abruptly broke into several pieces, luckily leaving him safe.

The rally is held in Saudi Arabia, but has been held in different locations in the past. From 1978 to 2009, the rally was held from Paris to Dakar in Senegal. From 2009 to 2019, the rally was moved to South America due to security concerns.

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Former F1 team reveals issues with Dakar rally attempt

Formula One drivers are the creme de la creme of motorsport, and usually compete in some racing series other than F1 for a change in surroundings. The Dakar rally is one such opportunity, and F1 drivers such as Fernando Alonso and Jacky Ickx competed in it.

Desert dunes at the Dakar Rally
Desert dunes at the Dakar Rally (via X)

Seeing the popularity of the rally, F1 team Minardo also registered themselves for the event but could not manage any success at all. Owner of the team Giancarlo Minardi explained the problems with developing a vehicle fit for competing in such a rally and the challenges they faced.

It was not easy to convert a truck that was not actually designed for racing into a fast racing truck. That was a huge challenge, which we had to tackle during the season in addition to the F1 activities. Still, we managed to make a car that went quickly over the dunes, despite the lack of experience we had.
Giancarlo Minardo said, as reported by RacingNews365

Minardi never did manage to display any real success in their brief stint in Formula 1, either. Even with drivers such as Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber, the Italian team could never manage to gather enough of a budget to assert themselves competitively.

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