Team HRC were present this morning as the route for the forthcoming 39th edition of the Dakar Rally was announced. The race, in South America, will run through Paraguay -new country in this race-, Bolivia and Argentina.
Race organisers in Paris outlined how the three capital cities of Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina will stage the start, the rest day and the race finish of the 2017 Rally Dakar. Team HRC will once again be participating with a revamped team to be announced shortly.
The Honda factory team in the competition – Team HRC – will feature in the great Dakar odyssey, which this year adds another new country, Paraguay, to the lengthy list of nations who have staged the historic race. Paraguay’s capital Asunción will host the race start with Honda and the other competitors setting off from the Guaraní region on January 2nd in an area that is unknown to most riders. Another of the key dates unveiled was January 8th, where the entourage will get a well-deserved rest day midway through the competition in the Bolivian capital La Paz. The trans-Andean country will be home to five of the competition’s stages with the final week’s rallying taking place almost entirely in Argentina, where the race is due to end on January 14th in Buenos Aires.
The world’s most important off-road event will play out over 9000 kilometres with a determined Team HRC with sights firmly set on the top step of the final podium in Buenos Aires. Before doing so riders will have to make it over a multitude of terrain types: crossing Paraguayan jungle tracks, navigating across the Bolivian salt-flats, climbing to over 4000 metres and eating sand in the Argentinean dunes. All of this in a rally that will include two marathon stages and lengthy special stages.
Team HRC will soon be back in action: next month the squad will take part in the first of the Dakar Series 2017 in Morocco with the Merzouga Rally from 21st to 27th May in the Moroccan Sahara Desert.
Martino Bianchi - Team HRC General Manager : "The Dakar 2017 is certain to be an interesting edition. There will be several new innovative ingredients such as the race start from Asuncion in Paraguay, some new stages in the northern region of Argentina and five stages in Bolivia, sure to be at altitude. The rest day in La Paz, the Bolivian capital, is also another novelty. I think that all the participants are likely to find this of interest, although we are not going to find out about all the details until the whole route is revealed in November. The logistic aspect will be important, given that the races starts from Asuncion, while all the vehicles will arrive in the port of Buenos Aires; so there will be a 1200 kilometre move from one capital to the other. For the time being we have only been given some of the details. I think that there will be more surprises in store for the 39th edition of the world’s most fascinating rally."
