Ekstrom was ahead of Sébastien Loeb (Prodrive Hunter), 2nd in the 2022 edition and nine-time world rally champion, and another Frenchman Stéphane Peterhansel (Audi).
The winner of the 2022 edition, Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah (Toyota), took 4th place 12 seconds behind the winner of the day, closely followed by Frenchman Guerlain Chicherit (Prodrive) and Spaniard Carlos Sainz, triple winner of the event (Audi).
This prologue is anything but insignificant.
It makes it possible to determine the starting position of the first ten of the day on the first real special on Sunday (603 km including 368 km of special) which will set the tone for the event whose finish will be judged on January 15.
On the motorcycle side, Australian Toby Price (KTM), 10th last year, set the fastest time, beating fellow countryman Daniel Sanders (GasGas) by one second and Botswana rider Ross Branch (Hero ).
Defending champion Sam Sunderland (GasGas) ranked 10th, and the first Frenchman, Adrien Van Beveren, is in 17th position.
The Dakar-2023, the first round of the rally-raid world cup which is rooted for the fourth consecutive year in the sands of Saudi Arabia, started this Saturday for more than 8,000 km in two weeks.
This year, 790 competitors took the start.
Bonuses for motorcyclists
Some novelties come to spice up the event reputed to be the most difficult in the world.
For the cars, the Dakar has reduced the performance of the elite cars (T1+ and T1U -the hybrid Audis-) in order to bring the performance of the amateur cars closer to that of the official teams.
The power is lowered for this category by 42 hp or 30 kw, while that of the T1.2 (two-wheel drive) is increased by around 20-25 hp.
"We lost more than 40 horsepower, 30 KW. That's 10%, it's huge and it's not good news", comments Guerlain Chicherit.
According to the winner of the Morocco rally, "it's going to play a lot. We didn't think it would have so much impact. It's a bit of the unknown".
"In Morocco, we were + perfo + in proportions that we could compare with Audi. We were rather + fast +, except that they were already up to 2023 standards, we were not yet. What will be the consequences? The car will necessarily be + slower +. Now will it be slower by 1/10th, 2/10th or half a second, I don't know", he wondered again.
For two-wheelers, new this year is the introduction of bonuses for motorcyclists who open the road and make the mark.
The first three drivers who spend the most time opening the special between the start and the refueling thus benefit from bonus seconds which will be deducted from their time at the finish.
© 2022 AFP