Dakar 2017

[factory_p]

Well this year has been much harder on navigation than during the recent events, and with navigation errors come a desire to gain back some time, and thus some mishaps.

Almost everyday you had a leader losing a wheel (Nasser & Pons) or crashing out entirely (Sainz) or just losing loads of time in navigation (Roma, Loeb and Peterhansel...) so I am quite happy with the stages designed by Coma.

As for the cancellation, it's really unfortunate since we are missing 2 beautiful stages and shortening other nice ones, but I am really not sure you can blame the organizers for this. When helos can't fly, no one race. Period.

[SteveRacer]

Dakar navigation has always been a changing thing. There were years when the teams were using GPS and we just driving towards a dot on a screen. There was a short time when the big teams used helicopters to designate the way and the drivers would head for it.
To keep in the spirit of the Dakar, their really needs to be at least 2 marathon stages.I also feel they need to lengthen the specials and shorten the liasons. Definitely easier said than done.
Lastly, when it Africa, terrian was dominanted by desert. Now we have more extremes making it more challenging in my opinion. We have (some) snow, extreme heat, rain, salt flats, WRC style stages, mountains, river crossings, desert, etc.