Riding shotgun in Ford’s Raptor for the Dakar Rally
The ultimate version of Australia’s favourite car is set to take on the world’s toughest race.
Raptor feels like an appropriate name for a beast soaring through the air, its tyres straining to touch the ground like the talons of a bird of prey.
Ford’s Ranger-inspired rally weapon is one of the world’s wildest race cars, designed to drive flat-out in the toughest terrain imaginable.
The drivers call it Formula 1 on dirt, but Ford’s Raptor for the Dakar Rally has more in common with Australia’s V8 Supercars.
The howling song of a 5.0-litre V8 interrupted by ferocious shifts from a sequential gearbox is a sound familiar to Bathurst 1000 fans.
Ford’s “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” strategy has shifted from the Falcon to the Mustang in touring car racing. Now the blue oval is going racing with a hardcore machine inspired by the road-going Ranger Raptor.
Powered by a modified version of the Ford Mustang’s “Coyote” V8 used in the Bathurst 1000 this Sunday, the racing Raptor is a high-riding, four-wheel-drive Supercar for the desert.
It will line up against the Ranger’s arch rival in the Toyota HiLux to take on the Dakar Rally in January.
The two-week-long epic across dirt, sand and rock pushes crews and their equipment to breaking point.
Which is why Ford just took this Raptor to the Rallye du Maroc in the Sahara Desert of Morocco, hoping to solve any weakness before the main event next year.
We rode shotgun, squeezing into a space that feels like a stealth fighter cockpit – complete with six-point harnesses, digital displays, myriad buttons and industrial cooling elements.
The engine is mounted as far back in the car as possible to centralise its mass, its carbon fibre cover pressing against your thigh.
Matthias Ekstrom took the wheel for the ride of a lifetime.
The 46-year-old Swede might be the world’s most versatile racer.
Aussie fans might remember that he led the Bathurst 1000 and finished without a scratch in 2013.
A world champion who applies his craft to rallying, ice racing, rallycross, NASCAR and more, Ekstrom beat a series stacked with F1 drivers to win two DTM touring car titles, and is a four-time winner of the “Race of Champions” that puts drivers in equal machinery for an end-of-year shootout.
Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Loeb are arguably the greatest F1 and WRC drivers of all time. Ekstrom beat them both in equal machinery.
He’s part of a crack driving squad that includes Spanish veterans Carlos Sainz and Nani Roma, both of whom have multiple Dakar wins.
Ekstrom is hungry to join them.
So much so that our time in the car isn’t just a joy ride, it’s a mission to expose flaws at racing speed.
I’m clearly the weak point in the car, taking turns yelping, groaning or falling silent as the car crosses territory at impossible speed. I can’t imagine trying to study navigational notes and relay them to the driver while going through such an ordeal.
The Raptor is an awesome piece of kit. Powered by a V8 detuned to make just 265kW and 540Nm - rules limit maximum power and top speed in the same of safety – it has awesome Fox Racing shock absorbers that allow other-worldly control and long-legged travel.
An enormous 520 litre fuel tank allows crews to race for long distances without stopping.
Most race cars reach their maximum speed for a few seconds at a time. Last year, Sainz pegged his Audi to its top speed for more than four minutes straight in an unflinching display of determination and reliability. Sainz won the Dakar despite having to stop 11 times to change punctured tyres, then helped Ford develop a car with a sophisticated integrated jacking system and spare tyres tucked under its butterfly doors.
The car’s lightweight carbon fibre body panels hide more than a few innovations, including cooling systems designed to keep the motor – and crew – in the right temperature window for several hundred kilometres at a time.
Ekstrom says Rally-Raid “is a totally different game” to everything else he has tried, including Bathurst.
“Everything we do is to prepare ourselves the best we can, 365 days a year, to win Dakar,” he says.
“Anything can go wrong. But ultimately you need to keep training, keep trying, and keep preparing. One day you will figure it out.”
He praises the racing Raptor’s sublime suspension and uncanny balance as its key strengths.
In the same way that the road-going Raptor feels more settled at high speed on gravel than anything else I’ve tried, the team tried to replicate that in the race car.
“There’s a lot of comfort for the performance we have – we hope that’s what’s going to make the difference,” he said.
“There are things you can take from road cars into motorsport - it’s not always that it only goes one way.
“100 per cent of the experience we make here, we take into account when we build cars.”
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