2024 Dakar Classic: Carlos Santaolalla breaks through in Classic domination

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Carlos Sainz was not the only Spaniard named Carlos to win at the 2024 Dakar Rally.

After missing out on the 2023 Dakar Classic when Juan Morera beat him by 101 points, Carlos Santaolalla was the top performer in the 2024 edition as he won seven of twelve stages. However, he still had to fend off Lorenzo Traglio, who claimed three stages, and ultimately pulled it off by just twelve points.

Santaolalla arrived in Saudi Arabia on a rather last minute schedule after his 2023 navigator Aran Sol I Juanola opted to run the main Dakar Rally in a Challenger car with Antonio Garcia Coma. Jan Rosa Viñas took over as Santaolalla’s partner in their Toyota Land Cruiser HDJ80, which had been sitting in a garage since March after repairing a fuel pump that ruined his hopes of winning the previous year.

The son of former Dakar mechanic Maurizio Traglio, Traglio’s Nissan Pathfinder set the tone early by winning the opening stage but finished sixth the following day to boost Santaolalla to the top spot. Santaolalla held the throne for most of the race, only briefly losing it twice when he finished runner-up to Ondřej Klymčiw in Stage #5 followed by a dismal Stage #8 where he finished eighteenth. Traglio capitalised on the latter to take the lead only to surrender it again the next day.

Morera switched from his Land Cruiser to a Porsche 959 designed to resemble the late René Metge‘s Porsche that won the 1986 Paris–Dakar Rally. He won the Prologue and Stage #2 but his car took a beating in the dunes, bottoming out when he finished thirty-third in Stage #3. His team-mate Frédéric Larre did not have much luck either, having to retire from Stage #1 after the rear trailing arm.

Porsche problems also extended to the Porsche 924s of P-Rally Team. Stage #3 was particularly disastrous as Tomasz Staniszewski‘s engine mount broke while Łukasz Zoll retired with a slate of electrical failures. Staniszewski skipped Stage #6 due to rear suspension damage the previous day; Janus van Kasteren Sr.‘s DAF Bull towed him to the finish.

Altough Klymčiw led the overall after Stage #8, a string of poor finishes dropped him out of the top twenty.

Croatian rally star Juraj Šebalj scored a top ten in his maiden Dakar Classic. Also from the rally world, former WRC navigator Jorge Pérez Companc, who previously raced the Dakar Rally as co-driver for his brother Luis, suffered a mechanical issue halfway through that spoiled a top-fifteen effort.

Rafael Lesmes was the highest finishing truck in ninth, racing a pink Mercedes-Benz 1844 after previously contesting the Dakar Rally in a Challenger car. On the other hand, the hydrogen-powered MAN truck of Alexandre Lemeray rolled over in Stage #4 and had to be flipped back by another truck piltoed by Jaime Martinez Canteli.

It is perhaps to be expected that the Saudi desert, which was already brutal enough for the main Dakar Rally, also took their toll on Classic vehicles, all of which were built prior to 1999 even if they were former Dakar challengers themselves. Michel Blanc‘s Renault 4L, reconstructed from a police car to resemble Claude and Bernard Marreau’s Renault Sinpar that finished third in 1980, lost its right rear wheel during the Chrono Stage which left Blanc and co-driver Frédéric Benedetti stranded in the desert before they got it repaired; the car then ended up on a flatbed three stages later. Nevertheless, he managed to reach the finish, an achievement that seven others were unable to mirror.

Unlike the Dakar Rally, the Dakar Classic is a regularity-based race that uses points instead of times.

Dakar Classic overall results

Finish Number Driver Co-Driver Team Group Total Points Margin
1 768 Carlos Santaolalla Jan Rosa Viñas Factory Tub H2.B 820 points Leader
2 702 Lorenzo Traglio Rudy Briani Tecnosport H3.C 832 points + 12 points
3 701 Paolo Bedeschi Daniele Bottallo Tecnosport H3.B 1,061 points + 241 points
4 703 Dirk van Rompuy Luis Barbero Garcia VR Racing by TH-Trucks Team H2.B 1,646 points + 826 points
5 764 Maxence Gublin Anthony Sousa Bolides Racing H2.B 1,877 points + 1,057 points
6 700 Juan Morera Lidia Ruba Momabikes Raid Team H2.B 1,909 points + 1,089 points
7 761 Marco Ernesto Leva Alexia Giugni R Team H2.B 2,464 points + 1,644 points
8 767 Amadeo Roige Bragulat Jorge Toral Pedrega Team H2.B 3,134 points + 2,314 points
9 911 Rafael Lesmes Jose Luis Ruano Garcia, Tabatha Romon Dakar Por La Vida H1T.B 3,455 points + 2,635 points
10 728 Juraj Šebalj Ivan Vidaković Tecnosport H2.B 3,670 points + 2,850 points
11 755 Jörg Sand Patrick Diemer Völkel Dakar Team H2.A 3,810 points + 2,990 points
12 750 Mathieu Kurzen Alexandre Fatio Geco Classic Racing Team H1.B 4,074 points + 3,254 points
13 743 Thierry Valtat Guillaume Gelée La Compagnie Saharienne H1.B 4,778 points + 3,958 points
14 719 Filippo Colnaghi Stefano Davide Fabiano Tecnosport H2.B 5,681 points + 4,861 points
15 704 Pascal Lebrun Sébastien Dubois Team Cap179 H2.B 5,811 points + 4,991 points
16 906 Corrado Pattono Piermarco Acerni, Gianluca Ianni Mototecnica Racing Team H2T.C 5,819 points + 4,999 points
17 705 Francisco Benavente Rafael Benavente Del Rio Recinsa Sport H2.B 6,172 points + 5,352 points
18 759 Frédéric Larre Jérémy Athimon Nantes Prestige Autos H2.B 6,190 points + 5,370 points
19 913 Jaime Martinez Canteli Nekane Abin Bardeci, Santiago Díaz de Cerio TH-Trucks Team H1T.B 6,927 points + 6,107 points
20 730 François Abrial Cecile Abrial Team SSP H2.B 7,371 points + 6,551 points
21 745 Dominique Durand Raphael Vial Team SSP H2.B 7,442 points + 6,622 points
22 723 François-Xavier Bourgois Patrice Auzet Team Boucou Assistance H3.A 7,552 points + 6,732 points
23 736 Michał Horodeński Arkadiusz Sałaciński Toyota Team Classic H3.B 6,553 points + 6,733 points
24 714 Ondřej Klymčiw Josef Broz Klymčiw Racing H2.B 7,609 points + 6,789 points
25 902 Frank Puchouau Enric Segura, Dorian Bardeau Team Boucou Competition H2T.C 8,113 points + 7,293 points
26 747 Teddy Delmonico Florian Garnier TFSL Racing H4.C 8,408 points + 7,588 points
27 766 Michaël Denis Philippe Garabeuf La Compagnie Saharienne H1.B 8,413 points + 7,593 points
28 727 Giulio Bertolli Renato Rickler R Team H2.B 9,418 points + 8,598 points
29 744 Andrew Graham Gavin Neate Allisport H2.A 9,842 points + 9,022 points
30 740 Matías Rodríguez Martín Sandra Guasch Planells BXS Motorsport H1.B 10,295 points + 9,475 points
31 729 Lionel Guy Johnny Mauduit CapÔsuD H2.B 11,598 points + 10,778 points
32 766 Michaël Denis Philippe Garabeuf La Compagnie Saharienne H1.B 12,526 points + 11,706 points
33 915 Alexandre Lemeray Fabien Lecaplain, Jean-Baptiste Lecot Team HoleShot Compétition H1T.C 12,864 points + 12,044 points
34 735 Herve Solandt Brice Laborie-Brondino RSO H2.B 13,025 points + 12,205 points
35 738 Jaap Bolk Twan Vollebregt Bolk Dakar Rally Team H4.C 14,567 points + 13,747 points
36 722 Andrea Belometti Luigi Derossi Desert Endurance Motorsport H3.C 14,796 points + 13,975 points
37 760 Olivier Delrieu Christophe Chabeuf La Compagnie Saharienne H1.B 15,203 points + 14,383 points
38 710 Stefano Calzi Umberto Fiori Motortecnica Racing Team H4.B 15,652 points + 14,832 points
39 757 Daniel Vetter Anton Frutiger Desert Cruiser H3.C 16,951 points + 16,131 points
40 734 Stefano Sinibaldi Simona Morosi R Team H3.C 18,895 points + 18,075 points
41 724 Paulo Sergio da Silva Oliveira Arcelio Couto TH-Trucks Team H2.B 20,119 points +19,299 points
42 718 Luciano Carcheri Fabrizia Pons Tecnosport H1.B 20,271 points + 19,451 points
43 737 Tomasz Staniszewski Stanisław Postawka P-Rally Team H2.A 20,378 points + 19,558 points
44 739 Daniel Albero Puig Jose Luis Serra Roca Team Un Diabético en el Dakar H3.C 20,733 points + 19,913 points
45 741 Damiano Lipani Stefano Crementieri R Team H3.C 21,356 points + 20,536 points
46 754 Sergi Fernández García Pablo Benavente Pedrega Team H3.C 21,986 points + 21,166 points
47 717 Maximilian Loder Laurence Loder Völkel Dakar Team H2.A 22,275 points + 21,455 points
48 742 Katherine Lovemore Stephen Lovemore Dreamy & The Pap Snoek H1.B 22,932 points + 22,112 points
49 751 Stéphane Docher Lionel Balandreaud TFSL Racing H3.B 24,497 points + 23,677 points
50 708 Puck Klaassen Sebastiaan Klaassen Nantes Prestige Autos H2.A 25,161 points + 24,341 points
51 908 Christian Ruppert Ursula Ruppert, Matias Ruppert Ruppert Motorsport H1T.B 25,621 points + 24,801 points
52 746 Ugo Bullesi Myriam Manzoni Befuel Bombelli Team H3.B 25,635 points + 24,815 points
53 753 Adriaan Botma Riaan Botma Midstream Oil H3.B 25,641 points + 24,821 points
54 709 Łukasz Zoll Michal Zoll DEXT P-Rally Team H2.A 28,201 points + 27,381 points
55 733 Panos Meyer Martin Bendig-Kreutzer Völkel Dakar Team H2.A 30,558 points + 29,738 points
56 762 Jan Vins Tomáš Hovorka Enjoy Motorsport H2.B 31,212 points + 30,392 points
57 903 Janus van Kasteren Sr. Toine Verkooijen, Herman Keijsers Classic Team de Rooy H2T.B 31,584 points + 30,764 points
58 910 Giuseppe Simonato Alessio Bentivoglio, Monica Buonamano Tecnosport H2T.B 31,624 points + 30,804 points
59 711 Asier Duarte Rodríguez Raquel Arranz TH-Trucks Team H2.B 31,662 points + 30,842 points
60 904 Ermanno De Angelis Annunziata Del Gaudio, Andreas Cadei Desert Endurance Motorsport H2T.B 31,986 points + 31,166 points
61 715 Joao Antonio de Almeida e Sousa Costa Luís Miguel Gonçalves TH-Trucks Team H2.B 35,400 points + 34,580 points
62 901 Pierre-Louis Quemin Olivier Guillory, Antoine Margall Team SSP H2T.B 35,698 points + 34,878 points
63 712 Barbora Holická Lucie Engová Czech Samurais H1.A 36,428 points + 35,608 points
64 900 Marco Giannecchini Luca Macrini, Alexandre Manuel Azenha de Freitas R Team H1T.B 38,105 points + 37,285 points
65 720 Michel Blanc Frédéric Benedetti 4lpine Retro H1.A 42,691 points + 41,871 points
66 756 Stefano Picasso Gianluca Biondi Desert Endurance Motorsport H1.B 44,599 points + 43,779 points
67 905 Ignacio Corcuera David Naveira, Fernando Garcia Sagasta Euskadi 4×4 H1T.A 46,761 points + 45,941 points
68 912 Daniel Schatz Goerg Gattinger, Fabian Stauner Völkel Dakar Team H1T.A 50,547 points + 49,727 points
69 716 Dominik Ben Katarzyna Malicka Coco Loco H3.C 54,401 points + 53,581 points
70 907 Thomas Wolthaus Bastian Klausing, Lina van de Mars Völkel Dakar Team H1T.A 55,520 points + 54,700 points
71 758 Frank Uwe Juergen Thiel Hartmut Weigelt Montana Racing H2.B 56,600 points + 55,780 points
DNF 721 Vincent Gonzalez Albert Casabona Vilaseca TH-Trucks Team H3.C DNF N/A
DNF 725 Pieter Peerlings Sam Teugels 924 Turbo Team H3.A DNF N/A
DNF 731 Marcel Quiros Joan Cairó i Ferrer BXS Motorsport H1.B DNF N/A
DNF 748 Giuliano Bergo Robert Blaas R Team H3.C DNF N/A
DNF 749 Jorge Pérez Companc Jose Maria Volta Madpanda Motorsport H3.B DNF N/A
DNF 752 Georges Garcia François Beziac Chancellor Team New Zealand H2.B DNF N/A
DNF 763 Giorgio Ciresola Ziga Colja Desert Endurance Motorsport H3.C DNF N/A

Dakar Classic stage winners

Stage Driver Points
Prologue Juan Morera 3 points
Stage #1 Lorenzo Traglio 38 points
Stage #2 Juan Morera 15 points
Stage #3 Carlos Santaolalla 49 points
Stage #4 Carlos Santaolalla 24 points
Stage #5 Ondřej Klymčiw 21 points
Stage #6 Carlos Santaolalla 92 points
Stage #7 Carlos Santaolalla 32 points
Stage #8 Lorenzo Traglio 67 points
Stage #9 Carlos Santaolalla 43 points
Stage #10 Carlos Santaolalla 31 points
Stage #11 Lorenzo Traglio 9 points
Stage #12 Carlos Santaolalla 15 points