Ballito ace in 2022 Dakar Rally alongside German racing partner

With 150 teams vying for a spot on the podium at the 2022 Dakar Rally held in Saudi Arabia, Ballito navigator Ryan Bland and German rally driving partner Daniel Schröder are in the mix to chase the honours.

The 12-stage Dakar, which began on Saturday at Ha’il and scheduled to finish in Jeddah on January 14, will see racers in the car category complete more than 8 000km of challenging and brutal terrain.

On Monday evening the PS Laser racing team of Schröder and Bland held a comfortable position in their VK50 Nissan Navara 5.0L V8, finishing in 44th position in stage 2 from Ha’il to Al Qaisumah in a time of 4 hours, 20 minutes and 27 seconds.

Leading the field with a time of 3 hours and 25 minutes were Dakar ace Sebastien Loeb (France) and Fabian Lurquin (Belgium).

Stage 3 of the race on Tuesday would have been from Al Artawaiya to Al Qaysumah.

The first part of this epic rally serves up some mean sand, while the faster second part throws out never-ending intersections which could see competitors easily making costly mistakes and waste time getting back on the road.

The job of a navigator such as Bland is to prevent this from happening with the aid of daily-issued road books.

These indicate details such as speed limits and directions, to name but a few.

There is usually no arrow pointing to a waypoint ahead, so one has to navigate using three sources of information – ICO for kilometers, GPS for CAP heading, and roadbooks for instructions. In certain circumstances the GPS will show an arrow directing teams to the next waypoint.

Their Navara runs on Avgas, an aviation fuel used in aircraft with spark-ignited internal combustion engines.

In the worst possible scenario, they will need 4 700 litres of this racing fuel to complete the 8 375km.

Fortunately for the duo, fuel comes free of charge in this race.

Daniel is standing in for this dad Jürgen, a veteran Dakar racer who would have made this his 10th outing.

The 63-year-old was forced to pull out owing to a shoulder injury which needs surgery.

Daniel is tackling the Dakar Rally for the 6th time, having finished twice in the bikes and acted as his dad’s co-driver on occasion.

This is his first time behind the wheel at the Dakar Rally as he straps into a six-point harness of the 6-speed sequential gear change Navara, which roars to life at the push of a button.

Follow the live timings at dakartiming.eu.

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