Happy New Year. Why, that must mean it’s the Dakar. And it is. Hooray for January – albeit in respect of the Dakar only.

So, who have we got making their way across South America right about now?

After Mitsubishi’s withdrawal after last year’s event – despite having introduced a new car for it – it doesn’t look like a bad bet that Volkswagen will take a second successive car victory. The team has a pretty imposing line-up of drivers: for a start, last year’s winner Giniel De Villiers.

Then there’s rally legend Carlos Sainz, who was leading last year until a massive roll destroyed his car a couple of stages from the finish. And Nasser Al-Attiyah moves to VW; he led last year’s event too, in a BMW, but was excluded for missing waypoints midway through the event.

The line-up is completed by last year’s second place man American Mark Miller, and Dakar first timer Brazilian Mauricio Neves, who is doing awfully well on stage 2 as I write this.

BMW isn’t without a chance though. Former bike winner Nani Roma certainly got the event off to a good start, topping the standings after the first stage yesterday. Stephane Peterhansel won the Dakar three times for Mitsubishi, not to mention his six bike wins, and finds himself in a BMW. Not one to discount, then. Also in the team are Guerlain Chicherit – leading stage 2 at the time of writing – and Leonid Novitskiy.

The other man to shout about is Robby Gordon, out there once again in the ludicrous Hummer. There is no better sight than that beast flying over sand dunes. It’s insane, brilliant, and not without success – he came third last year.

In the bikes, it should be a battle between Cyril Despres and Marc Coma, who between them have won the last five runnings of the Dakar. They’re on familiar 690cc machines – both KTM – which are being phased out next year. After stage 2, though, it’s David Casteu who leads, on a new 450cc Sherco machine. Casteu won stage 1, and stage 2 was won by last year’s third place man, David Fretigne, on a 450cc Yamaha. So maybe it won’t be so straight forward for the favourites.

Which is pleasing. There are definite favourites in the cars too – I’d go for Sainz or Al-Attiyah (overall leader at the time of writing) – but at this very early stage, this year’s Dakar is already proving to be characteristically unpredictable. And we’ve got a fortnight of this stuff. Brilliant!