[1] Sébastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen made their debuts in rally-raid, driving for Peugeot and MINI respectively.

The biggest issue that the competitors faced was the weather phenomenon El Niño which shortened most of the stages due to heavy rain (in first week) and massive heat (in the second one).

All these problems led to a big criticism and made Dakar director Étienne Lavigne announce a possible change of the rally to Southern Africa,[5] aiming to put pressure on South American countries.

[6] The rally was won by 2015 rookie Toby Price, continuing the KTM dominance, with Honda still suffering from a lack of reliability.

The debutant Sébastien Loeb dominated the first week, but in the end, the victory went to Mr. Dakar Stephane Peterhansel.

In addition to the discussion regarding the need for the cancellations, the most controversy was generated by the [apparent] double standards of the organization.

[7] This Dakar was also marked by several accidents involving assistance trucks, causing some deaths among the local population.

X-Raid immediately contested the decision, since several drivers such as Nasser Al-Aiyah or even Sainz and Loeb had to reduce the pace in order to save some fuel, due to the extension of the stage, but ASO stewards acquitted Peterhansel.

[15] The third stage for trucks was shortened a second time after a part of the track collapsed due to the heavy rain.

Then of Matthias Walkner's serious accident and the crash of Lionel Baud's Mitsubishi, killing one spectator in Bolivia.

It was expected a full open race with a large group of candidates to the victory across KTM and Honda but soon Husqvarna (competing with KTM bikes) reinforced by the candidate Ruben Faria joined for the victory while Yamaha (which lost some of its most valued competitors but assisted of the return of Hélder Rodrigues) played a secondary role.

Sherco was also expecting for a surprise mainly from Alain Duclos Joan Barreda started the rally with a strong pace, as usual, and won the prologue, setting the fastest time in the 3rd and 4th stages, but was given two penalties for speeding in the connections.

This led to the victory of the Argentinian rookie Kevin Benavides and the leadership of the privateer Štefan Svitko in the 3rd stage.

On stage 6, an accident led to the retirement of Ruben Faria with a broken wrist when he was 7th overall, and Joan Barreda lost all the chances of winning the 2016 Dakar when mechanical problems caused a finish five hours behind Price.

The marathon's second stage leg promoted a revolution on quads ranking, with some crashes and mechanical problems leading to many withdrawals such as Marcelo Medeiros (third overall) Rafal Sonik (defending champion) and Qatari Abu-Issa.

In stage 6, finally, the return of Patronelli brothers, with Marcos winning ahead of Alejandro, who climbed to the top of the general classification, on the day of Casale's retirement due to a broken clavicle after a crash.

The Mini army faced the South African Toyotas and the return of Peugeot with a fully renovated 2008 DKR after the 2015 in race tests.

After the rest day the problems started for Loeb, sticking first in the sand and then capsizing his cars in a dry river.

Al-Attiyah was only fifth, while Sainz won the ahead of Erick Van Loon and Hirvonen, both on Mini, and took the race lead.

In stage 10 both Van Loon and Al-Attiyah capsized their Mini's while Sainz had to retire with gearbox problems.

After the dominance of Kamaz in the previous editions, it was a great surprise to see the Russian monsters in the middle of the rankings in the first stages.

Stacey lost some time and fell into fifth position, while Versluis climb to first, followed by De Rooy and the two Kamaz.