Ford has decided to pursue competition in one of the most intense motorsports events in the world, and they’re doing it with a Ranger pickup. Not a stock Ranger, of course, but rather an extreme racing build based on the Ford Ranger will be prepared to contest the legendary Dakar Rally in 2024.
Paris to Dakar to South America to Saudi Arabia
The Dakar Rally has history dating back to the first running in 1979 as the Paris-Dakar Rally. The goal was to travel from Paris, France to Dakar, Senegal, competing in a series of special stages in much the same way that a World Rally Championship event is conducted.
The difference is the 6,200-mile distance between the two cities, and the treacherous, often roadless terrain of the Sahara Desert. The Dakar Rally was always an event that claimed more than its share of vehicles, and occasionally the lives of its participants.
From 1979 to 2007, the rally ran its traditional route through France and across north Africa, but civil unrest in Mauritania made the event too dangerous to run in 2008. The rally organizers moved the event to the dry deserts of South America for 10 years from 2009-2019. There the race continued in much the same format in Argentina, Chile and Peru. From 2020 to the present, the rally moved to Saudi Arabia.
In its current form, the Dakar Rally is called a “Rally-Raid” to set it apart from the more road-based events of the World Rally Championship (WRC). The World Rally-Raid Championship is jointly sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) and Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme.
The Dakar, as it is known familiarly, is open to motorcycles, quads, cars, side-by-side UTVs and trucks. Because of the length of the event, the remote locations, and the expense of participating, the leaderboards tend to be dominated by manufacturer-sponsored teams. That’s the environment that Ford is intending to join.
Ford in the Dakar Rally
Ford’s subsidiary for racing is called, Ford Performance, and its factory-backed teams have raced in events and series from Le Mans and Daytona endurance racing to rally events from WRC to the Baja 1000. However, this will be the first effort from Dearborn to take on the Dakar Rally.
The first step in Ford’s multi-year plan to compete in the Dakar is to finish and learn in collaboration with longtime partners M-Sport and Neil Woolridge Motorsport (NWM) for vehicle development, servicing and event management.
“To lead the charge at one of the ultimate global off-road events – the Dakar Rally – has been a goal of ours,” said Mark Rushbrook, Global director, Ford Performance Motorsports. “We cannot underestimate the enormity of the challenge ahead of us. We need to finish and learn first with Ranger T1+ and partners like M-Sport and NWM, who bring their expertise to bear. Together, we can do amazing things in the sand dunes of the Arabian Peninsula.”
Ford plans to enter a purpose-built, high-performance Ford Ranger into the 2024 Dakar Rally, competing in the in the Rally Raid T1+ category. This category allows for a tube-frame chassis on which mechanical and safety components are mounted.
Bodywork is made from fiberglass or carbon fiber in the shape of the production vehicle, but little of the Ranger that competes in the Dakar will come from a Ford factory. T1-class vehicles may be two-wheel or four-wheel drive and equipped with gasoline or diesel engines. They are generally the fastest vehicles in the field.
The joint Ford Performance, M-Sport and NWM team has implemented a series of development phases through 2023 and continues testing with the Ranger T1+, based on the previous generation global Ranger, with a 3.5-liter EcoBoost engine. Test races are expected to include Spain’s Baja España Aragón and Morocco’s Rally du Maroc rallies in July and October, respectively, before tackling the Dakar Rally early in 2024.
“Our first time in Dakar will be a learning adventure that will help inform how we compete in the future,” said Rushbrook. “But as with all racing, we’re not just racing to win, we’re also racing to help build better products for our customers.”
The 2024 Dakar Rally will take place Jan. 5-19 in Saudi Arabia.