The first week of the Dakar Rally is over and that gives the participants the opportunity to reflect for a while. At Sebastien Loeb, steam mainly comes out of the ears. Not only because of damage to the suspension during the sixth stage he now has no chance for the final victory, but also because of the way the Rally is organised this year.

Loeb had already criticised the organisation earlier this week after he was given a five-minute time penalty for exceeding the speed limit on a section of the route where it first applies this year. According to Loeb, this was due to a slow GPS signal and called the organisation 'incompetent'.

After a week of driving through the desert, he directs his annoyance in a general sense to the way in which the route has been plotted and the limited preparation time that the teams have been given since this year.

"It’s quite tricky because the tracks are not really visible. We follow the tracks and we arrive to the point where the tracks disappear and there are plenty of lines going everywhere and we don’t know what to do", Motorsport.com quotes loeb. "I don't want to criticise the roadbook, but the truth is that as a driver I can't make a difference. I do what I am told, it is a race for co-drivers".

Not everyone is as dissatisfied as Loeb

The navigators now only get the road book fifteen minutes before the start of the test and they now have to process more information per page. Loeb says that he does not enjoy it very much in this way, even though the new buggy developed by Prodrive was an ambitious start to the rally.

However, Mathieu Baumel, the navigator of Dakar ace Nasser Al-Attiyah, does not see it as a problem. “Being a new system, those who adapt quicker will have an advantage. In fact the roadbooks are well done, it’s more a question of interpretation of the notes and transfer them to the driver", Baumel says