Stage Success for Porsche at the 2022 Dakar Classic Rally

“What in the world is an American woman doing here with this car?”

Jacky Ickx was incredulous. The legendary Formula One, sports car, and Dakar driver materialized in the desert bivouac next to Amy Lerner’s 1982 Porsche 911 SC. Lerner had come a long way to run her Porsche sports car at the 2022 Dakar Classic in Saudi Arabia.

Her #705 Porsche, outfitted with classic blue and white Rothmans livery, echoed the trio of 1984 Porsche 911 rally cars that made Paris-Dakar history. Lerner explained how she loved being able to represent and recreate the dream that millions of people have after seeing Porsche sports cars whipping around the desert en route to the top of the podium at the most epic rally in the world.

His features softened, he smiled and eyes twinkled. “You understand,” he said. “Yes,” Lerner answered. “I understand.” Little did she know that several days later that she would join the ranks of Dakar stage winners and author another chapter in the book of Porsche’s Dakar history.

A moment of pandemic-induced lunacy in 2020 drove Lerner to find the rally-spec Porsche and convince Sara Bossaert, an architect friend in Barcelona, to enter the 2021 Dakar Classic. The Classic was a new concept to run parallel to the main Dakar race and highlight the types of cars that raced in the 1980s and 1990s.

It was the first Dakar Classic, Lerner’s first Dakar adventure, and Bossaert’s first role as rally navigator at any event. You can read more about their Dakar Classic debut and Porsche Dakar rally history here.

The duo faced a steep learning curve but came back for more in January 2022. Lerner knew she could better wrestle the Porsche through the desert. The pair also appreciated they could improve their racecraft and compete—not just survive. They could build on what they learned, but they also realized that nothing at the Dakar is easy.

The Challenge of the Dakar Classic

The Dakar Classic is not an outright quest for speed. Instead, the Classic is a regularity rally that tests the ability to match time, speed and distance to a set standard. The pace isn’t leisurely, and the navigation isn’t always intuitive. It is an ongoing mental challenge requiring close coordination between driver and navigator.

“We both went to a regularity rally in Catalunya in Spain, “Lerner recalled. “We rented a VW Golf that was built for hill climbs—the car was tight and the steering was hard. I drove it like an automatic—left it in second and third and didn’t take my hands off the wheel in the tight and windy roads in the foothills of the Pyrenees. It was fun, but we learned a lot about regularity. Sara understood better what her job was, and I understood how to interpret so that I could drive well.”

Lerner engaged the Belgian GRally team to prepare the Porsche and provide race support. As Lerner’s mentor, rally legend Rod Hall, would say: “To finish first, you must first finish.” Mechanical reliability in a race that strings together daily endurance races is mandatory for a good result.

Engaging GRally paid off—team manager Arthur Tanghe, and mechanics Ulysse Dujardin, and Simon Van Houtte looked after the Porsche’s mechanicals. Despite the challenges of racing in harsh conditions, the Porsche suffered no mechanical failures. Each night, the crew inspected, cleaned, and serviced the Porsche as needed to fight the next day.

The only mechanical issue Lerner and Bossaert faced during the entire event was a single pinch that rolled a tire off its rim. The Porsche’s two on-board spares remained mostly unused. The BFGoodrich rally tires never faltered. While the tires required care and pressure management, having no flat tires across a dozen rally stages is a remarkable feat.

The inaugural 2021 Dakar Classic field of 24 vehicles was eclipsed by the 142 vehicles that took the start for the 2022 Dakar Classic. Lerner’s Porsche presence in 2021 likely inspired a pair of additional Porsche entries for 2022.

Logistics were well handled and the sizable field was never an issue. Lerner’s prior rally experience taught her to be wary of following others. So Lerner and Bossaert avoided following the tracks of others, instead choosing to make their own navigation decisions.

Lerner explained that “People who make mistakes don’t leave a sign saying ‘don’t follow me.’ We don’t know who made those tracks. We got fooled once or twice but otherwise did pretty good for navigation.”

Lerner & Bossaert’s 2022 Dakar Classic Adventure

The 2022 Dakar Classic added navigation sub-stages within the regularity rally. The usual regularity stages make use of electronic mapping tools (something like following a route map in a passenger car GPS system), but the navigation segments relied on a roadbook or a direction heading and distance. The early navigation tests took vehicles down flat tracks that were easy to find and follow. Later challenges became more difficult.

The secret to doing well in the overall ranking isn’t winning each stage, but rather avoiding bad stages. Which is easier said than done. Lerner and Bossaert found early success, recording second and sixth place stage finishes and reaching as high as 12th in the overall.

Running out of fuel only two kilometers short of the seventh stage finish, however, was a painful lesson. “I sensed it,” Lerner recalled. “I could tell from the way the car was sounding. I started asking Sara “how many kilometers do we have to go?’” It was a big lesson on fuel management.

The regularity format requires maintaining a steady speed, which means getting back up to speed quickly after slowing down. The trick is maintaining momentum while also managing fuel consumption. “The penalty we would have gotten for being a minute late was a lot less than what we got for running out of gas two kilometers from the finish line,” said Lerner.

“Everyone would say ‘It’s the Dakar’ with a French accent and shrug of the shoulders,” she continued. “These things happen, and it is something you can be told and taught, but until you experience the significance of it and having to change your planning, you don’t really get it until you do it. That lesson went deep.” Nothing at the Dakar is easy.

Hope for redemption on the next stage went unfulfilled. A navigation quirk put the Porsche into a small dune. Unsure of what was on the other side, Lerner hesitated, lost momentum and buried the Porsche in sand up to its axles.

Fortunately, a moment of despair turned into a rally spirit moment. Fellow competitors, Italians Roberto Musi and Rebecca Busi, stopped their Land Rover and helped direct oncoming traffic. “It was a bit of chaos,” said Lerner, “but the two of them were phenomenal. In the end our truck showed up and pulled us the rest of the way out. That was a regularity section—huge penalties that day, and that’s what took us out of the overall ranking.”

With chances of overall success gone after two difficult stages, stage nine loomed large. Another rally spirit moment buoyed Lerner and Bossaert early in the day when a pod of motorcycles passed and gave the Porsche a thumbs-up and cheerful wave. One popped a wheelie and disappeared down the road.

With a reminder that they were fortunate to be racing at Dakar, and that it’s a fun place to be, spirits inside the Porsche rose and sights turned to the stage at hand. The mental reset worked, and Lerner and Bossaert made their mark in the Dakar record books with a stage win.

The stage win almost wasn’t a win. Preliminary scoring imposed a penalty for finishing more than a minute late and put the #705 Porsche into second place. Earlier in the day, Lerner and Bossaert had arrived at a segment starting point ahead of their appointed time, but another competitor blocked the way.

Assured by a trackside marshal that it would be no problem, Lerner waited for two minutes and drove away when the path was clear. Those extra two minutes proved costly. The winner had already been announced, but a senior steward looked at the data and rescinded the penalty, restoring Lerner and Bossaert to first. Again, nothing at the Dakar is easy.

Stage eleven was a highlight. The penultimate stage featured spectacular big sweeping dunes. Lerner relished the chance to show what she and the Porsche could do. “I finally figured out how to drive that car off road,” she said. “Going back—I think it was one of the first full days of competition—there was a deep sandy [dry riverbed] and we hopped in it and just went.

“There must have been eight four-wheel drive vehicles stuck and we just drove by them. That was really, really fun. Having done that, we were super looking forward to the dunes. We never got stuck. We just kept moving. Keep on cruising. Can you take a rear-wheel-drive sports car through some big dunes and not have a problem? Absolutely you can.”

Lerner and Bossaert took their #705 rear-wheel drive Porsche to a 37th place overall finish in the 2022 Dakar Classic. Asked whether the second time was easier, Lerner demurred. “You don’t expect anything to be easier. I was hopeful that I would be able to drive the car better. I was determined.

“The Porsche is not an easy ride. It was one of the older vehicles there. It is a sports car. It was dirty, dusty and physically demanding to drive. It is hard to drive. I knew that I could do it and I went in wanting to show that I knew how to drive that car and could drive that car. That’s what I was determined to do for me. Adding that determination to what we had learned for the regulatory, it turned out that we were able to do pretty well.”

After the 2022 Dakar Classic

Having proved that she could drive a rear-wheel drive Porsche at Dakar successfully, it was time for Lerner’s Porsche to find a new home. Her car will cross the Bonham’s auction block with no reserve in Monaco on May 13, 2022.

Lerner and Bossaert’s car is ready for anyone that wants to take a shot at top tier vintage rallying. It still has the giant autograph that Jacky Ickx scribbled on the roof. Lerner’s Dakar days may not be over, though. She’s still ruminating on future plans and options.

Lerner’s rally success in Saudi Arabia opened a unique opportunity to attend the first Rally Jameel as a media representative (Jameel means “beautiful” in Arabic). The women’s off-road rally event in Saudi Arabia featured 35 teams, with the majority from Saudi Arabia.

Lerner shifted from student to teacher, sharing her wisdom with the entrants. She also met many ladies working as marshals. They flagged events such as Formula One for fun while working as doctors and medical technicians in their professional lives. The Rally Jameel resonates deeply with Lerner—she raced several times at the Gazelle Rally, a similar event in Morocco.

Lerner isn’t merely a driver; she’s also a budding documentary filmmaker. Her debut effort focuses on Rod Hall’s 50th Baja 1000 at the tender age of 80. Lerner met Hall in 2012 while training for the Gazelle Rally. When Lerner found out that Hall intended to attempt his 50th consecutive Baja, she felt compelled to tell the story.

She and a team followed Hall and his family for over two years. Lerner also recruited experts that brought their technical movie making magic to the project. The result—titled “One More Win”—is available on streaming platforms. Like racing at Dakar, it wasn’t easy.