Tribune News Network
Doha
Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah, a five-time winner and the defending W2RC champion, will start off among the favourites when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia plays host to the Dakar Rally for the sixth time from January 3-19.
Fifty registered FIA World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) contenders spearhead a massive entry on what promises to be one of the most difficult ever Dakar rallies and the fourth to be the opening round of the W2RC.
Al Attiyah and co-driver Edouard Boulanger made the switch to the new Dacia Sandrider towards the end of 2024 and the Qatari clinched a third successive title – and a first with Boulanger - with victory at the Rally of Morocco on the car’s debut.
The Qatari-French duo will starting with a Prologue stage near Bisha on Friday, along with the other competitors who will tackle 12 gruelling desert stages that incorporate 5,145 competitive kilometres in a punishing route of 7,753km.
Toyota Gazoo Racing are the defending W2RC Manufacturers’ champions but face the might of Dacia and the Ford M-Sport teams on this occasion with X-raid Mini concentrating on the Drivers’ Championship. BBR Motorsport (Taurus), the G Rally Team and X-Raid will battle it out for honours in the Challenger category and the Can-Am Factory Team faces competition from Polaris in the SSV class.
Three Dacia Sandriders, four Ford Raptors and X-Raid Minis and seven Toyota Hiluxes top the list of 24 entrants eligible for the Ultimate W2RC category with MD Optimus and Century Racing also in the mix.
Nine-time WRC champion Sébastien Loeb has yet to fulfil his ambition of winning the event and drives a second car with Cristina Gutiérrez driving the third car. Loeb and navigator Fabian Lurquin finished second to Al Attiyah in Morocco last October.
Defending the W2RC Manufacturers’ title for a fourth time could be even more challenging for Toyota Gazoo Racing on this occasion. Yazeed Al Rajhi finished as the runner-up to Al Attiyah in 2023 and 2024 and is joined by Brazilian Lucas Moraes and American former Challenger champion Seth Quintero to spearhead the Japanese manufacturer’s challenge with the latest version of the Toyota Hilux. The trio continue to team up with their regular navigators, Timo Gottschalk, Armand Monleón and Dennis Zenz.
Guillaume de Mévius (second overall in 2024) and Denis Krotov will drive the two petrol-engined Minis, while the FIA World and European Baja Cup champion João Ferreira and Frenchman Lionel Baud will persevere with the diesel engine. Guerlain Chicherit may well challenge for overall honours in a third petrol machine but is not personally registered for the W2RC.
The Ford M-Sport Team have developed the Ranger and then the Raptor away from the spotlight of the W2RC for much of 2023 and 2024. But the team has registered for the 2025 W2RC and will be challenging for both the Manufacturers’ and Drivers’ Championships.
Carlos Sainz is a four-time event winner and the defending champion after his memorable success last January with Team Audi Sport. He again teams up with Lucas Cruz and will be joined by former Audi team-mates Mattias Ekström/Emil Bergkvist and Mitch Guthrie/Dennis Zenz in the three cars registered for Manufacturers’ points. Guthrie makes the step up from the Challenger class.
Sixteen crews have registered for the W2RC and the defending SSV champion Yasir Seaidan of Saudi Arabia switches to Team BBR and leads the way with his French navigator Michael Metge in the first of a dozen Taurus T3 Max machines registered for the class.
Argentina’s Nicolas Cavigliasso, the recent FIA Middle East Baja Cup winner Dania Akeel and the talented Spaniard Pau Navarro will be aiming for the top spot on the podium. Cavigliasso again teams up with the defending Challenger champion navigator Valentina Pertegarini.
Nasser Racing fields a Taurus for the FIA World Baja Cup’s Challenger champion Edouard Pons, while Qatar’s QMMF Team has entered a couple of T3s for Al Attiyah’s brother Khalifa Saleh Al Attiyah and the 2024 FIA Middle East rally champion Abdulaziz Al Kuwari.
Eight of the 10 registered SSV crews will drive Can-Ams and the Canadian manufacturer will also give a competitive debut to its new Maverick R. The machines were permitted to run in an Experimental class towards the end of 2024 but were not eligible for FIA Championships.
The route
The route for the 47th running of the world’s most famous off-road event is foreboding, challenging and features hundreds of kilometres of sandy tracks and dune crossings.
The event is based out of a start camp in Bisha in the southwest of the Kingdom for the first time and finishes in the remote town of Shubaytah, deep in the Empty Quarter of Saudi’s Eastern Province close to the frontier with the UAE.
A 29km Prologue, near Bisha, will determine the starting order for the opening 412km Bisha loop stage on January 4th.
The first part of the race features the 48hr-chrono stage of 965km on January 5th and 6th and this leads towards a Marathon stage without service assistance between Al Henakiya and Al Ula, en route to the rest day in Ha’il.
After the rest day on January 10th, action resumes with the sixth stage of 606km between Ha’il and Ad Duwadimi and another punishing 481km loop through the deserts around Ad Duwadimi on January 12th.
The Dakar caravan then heads to the Saudi capital of Riyadh and on to Haradh for a further two specials of 487km and 357km before arriving in Shubaytah on January 15th after a short run of 119km through the demanding dunes.
A final sting in the tail will be the 11th stage of 280km around Shubaytah on January 16th before the final Power Selective Section forms part of the last stage of 134km that brings the survivors to the finish celebrations in remote Shubaytah. Points will be awarded for the fastest three crews in each category on the new Power Selective Section.
2025 Dakar Rally – Selected entries (W2RC registered)
Ultimate
200. Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah (QAT)/Edouard Boulanger (FRA) Dacia Sandrider
201. Yazeed Al Rajhi (SAU)/Timo Gottschalk (DEU) Toyota Hilux Overdrive
203. Lucas Moraes (BRA)/Armand Monleon (ESP) Toyota GR DKR Hilux
211. Henk Lategan (ZAF)/Brett Cummings (ZAF) Toyota GR DKR Hilux
217. Denis Krotov (KGZ)/Konstantin Zhiltsov (ANA) Mini JCW Rally 3.0i
219. Sébastien Loeb (FRA)/Fabian Lurquin (BEL) Dacia Sandrider
222. Guillaume de Mévius (BEL)/Mathieu Baumel (FRA) Mini JCW Rally 3.0i
225. Carlos Sainz (ESP)/Lucas Cruz (ESP) Ford Raptor
Challenger
326. Khalifa Saleh Al Attiyah (QAT)/Bruno Jacomy (BRA) Taurus T3 Max
334. Abdulaziz Al Kuwari (QAT)/Nasser Al Kuwari (QAT) Taurus T3 Max.
