2016 Dakar Rally
| 2016 Dakar Rally | |||
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Part of the Dakar Rally
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2016 Dakar route
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| Host country |
 Argentina and  Bolivia
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| Dates run | 2 – 16 January 2016 | ||
| Stages | 14 | ||
| Stage surface | Gravel, dirt, sand | ||
| Overall distance | 9,237.00 km (5,739.61 mi) | ||
| Results | |||
| Bikes winner |
 Toby Price Red Bull KTM Factory Racing
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| Quads winner |
Marcos Patronelli Yamaha Racing |
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| Cars winner |
 Stéphane Peterhansel Jean-Paul Cottret Team Peugeot Total
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| Trucks winner |
 Gerard de Rooy Moi Torrallardona Darek Rodewald Iveco
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| Crews | 354 at start, 215 at finish | ||
The 2016 Dakar Rally was the 37th edition of the event and the eighth successive year that the event was held in South America. The event started in Buenos Aires, Argentina on January 2, then ran through Argentina and Bolivia.
Sébastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen made their debuts in rally-raid, driving for Peugeot and MINI respectively.
The victory in cars category was contested in court by runner-up X-Raid Team.
ASO soon faced problems planning the 2016 rally. Chile refused to take the rally, the first time since Dakar is being held in South America, and then, with just 4 months to the start, Peru also refused to take the rally. Without Atacama Desert and Andes, the rally was mainly based in Argentina with lots of fast stages on closed narrow tracks WRC style, and a lack of stages in full open terrain with heavy navigation issues.
The biggest issue that the competitors faced was the weather phenomenon El Niño which shortened most of the stages due to heavy rain (in first week) and massive heat (in the second one). All these problems led to a big criticism and made Dakar director Étienne Lavigne announce a possible change of the rally to Southern Africa, aiming to put pressure on South American countries. Later, he would announce that the rally would remain in South America, and was looking for new countries.
The rally was won by 2015 rookie Toby Price, continuing the KTM dominance, with Honda still suffering from a lack of reliability. Patronelli brothers dominated in Quads (this time by Marcus), while Peugeot returned with a better car than the rivals, as the Peugeot 2008 DKR led from the first real stage until the end of the rally. The debutant Sébastien Loeb dominated the first week, but in the end, the victory went to Mr. Dakar Stephane Peterhansel. Gerard de Rooy won the Dakar again, putting an end to Kamaz dominance.
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Wikipedia