2015 Dakar Rally Preview

Sunday marks the start of the 36th Dakar Rally. This will be the seventh consecutive year with the race being held in South America. Buenos Aires plays host to the start of the 13-stage event and will be the finish line in a fortnight. After three stages in Argentina, the rally will head to Chile for three stages before having one stage end in Bolivia in the middle of the event. Chile will host two more stages before ending with four stages in Argentina.

Nani Roma won the 2014 edition in the car class, becoming the second competitor to win in two different disciplines. Roma won the 2004 Dakar in the bike class. Stéphane Peterhansel finished runner-up to Roma in 2014 after losing the lead on the final stage. The Frenchman is looking for his twelfth Dakar victory having won five in cars and six on bikes. Roma looks to extend Mini's Dakar winning streak to four with Argentine Orlando Terranova and Pole Krzysztof Hołowczyc as his teammates and 2011 Dakar winner, Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah also driving a Mini.

Peterhansel moves from Mini to Peugeot where he will be joined by 2010 Dakar winner Carlos Sainz and five-time Dakar bike class winner Cyril Despres. This will be Despres' first appearance in the car class. Peugeot has won four Dakars, the last coming in 1990 with Ari Vatanen behind the wheel.

Toyota will be led by 2009 Dakar winner, South African Giniel de Villiers while Robby Gordon is the lone Hummer in the field. Portuguese driver Carlos Sousa will lead Mitsubishi as the Japanese manufacture looks for their fourteenth Dakar victory and first since the race moved to South America.  Porsche factory driver Romain Dumas will compete for MD Rallye Sport while 1992 Indianapolis 500 rookie Phillipe Gache returns to the Dakar driving for SMG. Guerlian Chicherit will be driving for X-Raid while Argentine Federico Villagra driving for Ford. Tim and Tom Coronel will each be driving for Suzuki.

In the bike class, Marc Coma looks for his fifth Dakar victory as he will have stiff competition from riders looking for their first success in the Dakar. Fellow KTM riders Jordi Villadoms and Ruben Faria return. Villdoms finished runner-up last year and Faria finished runner-up in 2013. Honda rider Joan Barreda won five stages in 2014. Frenchman Olivier Pain finished third in 2014 as Pain is the top contender for Yamaha, who looks for their first Dakar triumph since Peternhansel won his last Dakar on a bike in 1998. KTM has won thirteen consecutive Dakars. Richard Sainct's victory in 2000 on a BMW was the last time KTM did not win the bike class.

Honda has four Dakar victories with their last coming in 1989 with Gillies Lalay. Along with Barreda, Hélder Rodrigues, Paulo Gonçalves and Laia Sanz are Honda's leading riders heading into the 2015 race. Spaniards and Frenchmen have won the last 11 Dakars in the bike class. Italian Fabrizio Meoni is the last non-Spaniard/Frenchman to win in the bike class when he won back-to-back Dakars in 2001 and 2002. Two Americans are competing in the bike class. Tony Gera will be riding a KTM while Antonio Narino will be on a Husqvarna.

Chilean Ignacio Casale looks for his second consecutive victory in the quad class. Pole Rafał Sonik finished runner-up last year and looks to become the second European rider to win in the quad class. Uruguayan Sergio Lafuente is another contender in the quad class. All three riders above are on Yamahas. Qatari Mohammed Abu-Issa and Chilean Victor Manuel Gallegos lead Honda as they look for their first victory in the quad class. All six editions for the quad class have been won by Yamaha. Casale is the lone winner of the quad class racing in 2014. Two-time winners Marcos Patronelli and Alejandro Patronelli and inaugural quad class winner Josef Macháček did not enter for 2015.

Andrey Karginov will return in the truck class driving a Kamaz. Last year, Karginov held off a late charge from 2012 truck class winner Gérard de Rooy for his first Dakar victory. The Dutchman de Rooy returns driving for Iveco. Kamaz will also have 2013 Dakar winner Eduard Nikolaev returning looking to get Kamaz their thirteenth Dakar victory. Czech driver Aleš Loprais is the lead contender for the German manufacture MAN. MAN's lone Dakar victory came with Dutchman Hans Stacey in 2007. Stacey will be driving for Iveco in 2015. Overall winner of the 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans and former Formula One and IndyCar driver Jan Lammers will compete for the Dutch manufacture Ginaf.

The first stage of the 2015 Dakar Rally will take the competitors from Buenos Aires to Villa Carlos Paz.