Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

The fifth leg of the 2024 Rallye du Maroc was the final shot for those contending for World Rally-Raid Championships. For some who trailed entering Friday like Yazeed Al-Rajhi, it was too little, too late. For others like Yasir Seaidan, it was enough to leave Morocco with as champion.

Al-Rajhi entered the final stage with perhaps an impossibly tall order as he needed to make up 21:21 on Nasser Al-Attiyah. Although Al-Attiyah had his worst outing of the rally in eighth, so did Al-Rajhi as he finished fifteenth.

Romain Dumontier‘s Rally2 title defence also came up short. After entering Morocco as the points leader, he had little answer for Bradley Cox and a disastrous Stage #4 doomed his chances. Even beating Cox for third on Friday and the class stage win among points-eligible riders was not enough to make up the gap.

In contrast, Seaidan stepped up his game to officially leapfrog Sebastián Guayasamín for the SSV title. As Fidel Castillo Ruiz won the stage in his return to racing after his broken collarbone in August, Seaidan trailed by thirty-eight seconds to top the W2RC drivers. Guayasamín was seventh outright (second for points drivers) and eleven minutes back of Seaidan.

Rokas Baciuška “celebrated” his Challenger championship, which he clinched after Stage #3, by having a mechanical failure just fifty-three kilometres into the stage. In the meantime, Tauruses concluded a dominant rally with their second 1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8 finish led by Michał and Eryk Goczał. Baciuška’s retirement meant no Can-Am Mavericks finished in the top ten on the last day as João Dias and Lionel Baud rounded out the order in their G Rally OT3s.

Jean-Loup Lepan has been brought home to France after suffering a massive crash in Stage #2 of the Rallye du Maroc, resulting in haemopneumothorax along with various fractures.

The accident occurred 145 kilometres into Tuesday’s leg when he was running sixth in Rally2. In the two days before the crash, he finished eleventh in class in Sunday’s Prologue and eighth in Stage #1.

He was conscious when medical help arrived and was brought to hospital in Casablanca, where he was diagnosed with the haemopneumothorax and fractures. Haemopneumothorax is a condition in which air and blood both fill the pleural space cavity between the chest and lungs, which typically occurs due to injuries.

On Friday, Lepan was transported via ambulance and eventually by air back to Amiens, France.

The retirement ends his 2024 World Rally-Raid Championship season on a downer. He finished fourth in the opening Dakar Rally followed by second behind DUUST Rally team-mate Konrad Dąbrowski at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge. After an eighth at the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid, Lepan skipped the Desafío Ruta 40 in June bfore returning for the final round in Morocco.

The owners of the newly formed Rebellion Spierings will race a pair of Taurus T3 Max cars at the 2025 Dakar Rally. Paul Spierings will be making his second start in the Challenger category in one Taurus, while Alexandre Pesci makes his class début in the other.

The Challenger division comes from Dakar Team Spierings‘ side, which fielded two Can-Am Mavericks for himself and Roger Grouwels under the Dakar Team Spierings RaceArt banner. Spierings finished tenth in class at the latest Dakar in January, his sixth start in the event and début in the category.

Pesci has raced the Dakar since 2020, though all five of his entries have come in the Ultimate category. The 2024 Dakar saw him pilot a Toyota Hilux to a fourteenth in class and twenty-seventh overall.

The Hilux will continue to race in 2025. Romain Dumas, a member of Rebellion Racing’s former FIA World Endurance Championship stable, is expected to remain in the seat.

Rebellion Spierings was revealed on Sunday as part of a partnership between Pesci’s Rebellion Racing and Dakar Team Spierings. Rebellion Racing was a WEC powerhouse before shuttering after the 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans to focus on Dakar. Pesci is also the head of Rebellion Timepieces, the official watchmaker of the Dakar Rally.

After partnering up as Lucky Explorers in 2023, Ottavio Missoni Jr. and Cesare Zacchetti will be together again for the 2025 Dakar Rally as part of Team Kove Italia. Zacchetti is no stranger to Kove Moto, while Missoni will make his début on the Kove 450 Rally EX.

Both riders will enter the Original by Motul (Malle Moto) subcategory. The deal came together via Cesare Galli, the head of Kove Moto’s Italian distributor Pelpi International.

“Kove is building an exceptional image thanks to the Dakar,” said Galli. “We are very happy to continue contributing to this Chinese company’s project as I strongly believe that competing is the most authentic way to demonstrate one’s skills and win the hearts of enthusiasts. I have a lot of experience in off-road racing myself, which I still like to do and I understand the value of these efforts well. With Cesare and Ottavio, we have two ideal riders for our team to convey to the public messages of passion, truth, and sympathy that we want to share.”

Good friends off the track, Missoni and Zacchetti ran the Dakar in 2023 as Lucky Explorer Gentlemen Team, sponsored by MV Agusta’s adventure motorcycle lifestyle brand. It was the former’s maiden Dakar, finishing forty-seventh in Rally2, and the latter’s fifth, placing eleventh in Original by Motul.

Zacchetti switched from a KTM to a Kove 450 Rally for the 2024 Dakar. Despite unusual incidents ranging from his bike getting stuck in a hole to eventual car winner Carlos Sainz running it over, he managed to reach the finish eighteenth in Malle Moto and sixty-sixth in Rally2. His best career finish is a thirty-eighth in 2021, a year before moving to Malle Moto.

When the Amaury Sport Organisation dropped Quads from the 2025 Dakar Rally programme, Juraj Varga‘s career in rally raid seemed to be in jeopardy. Fortunately, he loves the sport too much to just give up like that.

Since switching to side-by-sides over the summer, Varga hopes to become the first Slovak to race the Dakar Rally in multiple categories.

“For me, the Dakar Rally was the highest peak and at the same time my greatest motivation,” Varga began. “After the Quad category was cancelled at Dakar, I lost that motivation and told myself that if there’s no Dakar, there’s no point in continuing here.

“However, I was still drawn to cross-country rally, so I gradually began preparing for a transition. It came after trying out a buggy. Even though it’s a buggy and has a steering wheel, it has a lot in common with a quad. Like the quad, it has four wheels and the driver isn’t hidden behind glass.”

His Varga Motorsport Team acquired a new Polaris RZR Pro R in June, which he took to the Hungarian Baja two months later. Despite not being classified as it was deemed an experimental car by the FIA, he viewed the race as a learning experience to adjust to his new confines. His competitive debut came at the 4V Rally Raid in Estonia, where he was second quickest in the first stage before severe flooding forced the remainder to be cancelled.

Their intent might not be malicious, but EnergyLandia Taurus Factory Team has a bad track record with the Moroccan environment now. On Thursday, the FIA fined the team €15,000 (€10,000 of which is suspended until the end of 2025 provided no repeat offenses) for dumping waste water into the desert during the Rallye du Maroc.

Mohand Abdelmoula, an assistant to FIA technical delegate Christophe Vely, reported the team to the stewards after noticing two crew members pouring a dark liquid from a barrel into the ground twice. From a distance and in photographs taken of the act, the liquid appeared to be oil.

Upon being summoned along with an interpreter, one of the implicated personnel clarified it was actually waste water from the team’s camper being poured out from old fuel storage barrels. He added he had done so thrice, figuring that it would not be harmful since it was just water.

Despite his defence, the FIA ruled he and his fellow crewman “acted extremely. Even if the barrels in question were previously used to store fuel rather than oil, this does not negate the fact that petroleum products have polluted the environment. The behavior of the team members caused great damage to nature. Of course, it has caused enormous damage to the entire motorsport community, including, but not limited to, the organiser of the event Rally du Maroc, W2RC (World Rally-Raid Championship) promoter and FIA.

“The FIA is making a huge effort to ensure that the motorsport community is as involved as much as possible in the promotion of nature conservation and responsible behavior in order to contribute to the promotion of green policies. The FIA representatives responsible for environmental policy were also present at the Rallye du Maroc 2024. This is further proof of the special attention paid to the environment. Such behavior of the team members showed extreme disrespect for the FIA’s goals.”

Romain Dumontier will need more than a Hail Mary to defend his World Rally-Raid Championship.

A rash of navigation errors cost Dumontier roughly thirty minutes during Stage #4 on Thursday, dropping him as far as thirtieth in Rally2 early into the leg. He made up some lost ground, but it nowhere near enough as he finished a distant eighteenth and 33-and-a-half minutes behind stage winner Harith Noah.

The reigning Rally2 champion entered the Rallye du Maroc as the points leader, but has spent much of the rally chasing down rival Bradley Cox. Cox finished fifth and twenty-two minutes ahead of Dumontier to reinforce his lead. Going into the final day, Cox leads the overall and has 1:06:28 on the seventh-placed Dumontier (fifth among W2RC-eligible riders).

“Tomorrow I try to finish on a good notes,” wrote Dumontier.

While Cox is in position to secure the title, his three-stage win streak was snapped Thursday as he finished fifth. Stage #4 was dominated by a pair of 2024 Dakar Rally winners as Rally2 overall victor Noah led Original by Motul champion Tobias Ebster.

The Taurus T3 Max has been dominant at the Rallye du Maroc so far, but it was not enough for Nicolás Cavigliasso to make a last-minute charge for the World Rally-Raid Championship in the Challenger class.

Stage #3 was Cavigliasso’s last chance to close the gap on Rokas Baciuška for the title. He went into Wednesday trailing by 42 points, meaning he would have needed to win at least two of the last three stages and finish higher than third in the other to overtake him.

Although Tauruses swept the Challenger top seven to follow up their 1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8 on Tuesday, Cavigliasso failed to score any stage points as he finished sixth. Consequently, even if he wins Stages #4 and #5 (which award five bonus points apiece) and the overall (thirty points) while Baciuška fails to record any points whatsoever, he still falls short by two points.

Despite concerns with the shock absorbers and a puncture, Baciuška finished eighth. Coupled with his SSV title in 2023, he is the first driver with a W2RC crown in multiple classes.

“This is a historic event,” said Baciuška. “It’s hard to imagine that it’s possible to achieve this, but overall, it’s great to become a world champion.

The Race of Champions will return to racing in stadiums in 2025 while making its debut in Oceania. On Wednesday, race organisers announced the 2025 edition will be held at Accor Stadium in Sydney, Australia.

Also known as Stadium Australia or Olympic Stadium, Accor Stadium was built in 1999 for the 2000 Summer Olympics. Since then, the venue has been used for a variety of sporting events with primary focus on rugby, cricket, and both Australian and association football. It is currently the home stadium for the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and South Sydney Rabbitohs of the National Rugby League, the New South Wales Waratahs of Super Rugby, and GWS Giants in the Australian Football League, while the Australian national teams in those sports also occasionally play there.

Accor Stadium is no stranger to racing either. In 2002, it hosted the inaugural Speedway Grand Prix of Australia, though it was dropped after just one edition; Marvel Stadium in Melbourne would be the new track location when the race was revived in 2013. That same year, Monster Jam held its maiden Australian event in Sydney.

Other events include concerts and even the occasional American football game.

“We are incredibly excited to bring the Race of Champions to Australia for the first time ever,” said ROC president Fredrik Johnsson. “ROC has always been about pushing drivers to their limits in unique conditions. Australia has a rich motorsport heritage, and we’re looking forward to celebrating that by pitting some of the best Australian drivers against some of the world’s most legendary racing stars in a spectacular showdown in the middle of Accor Stadium.”

When Frédéric Baudry fell off his bike in what was ultimately a fatal accident on Monday, Manuel Andújar was the first competitor to come to his aid. For lending his assistance, the FIA removed over twenty minutes from Andújar’s Stage #1 time.

Baudry, a Rally2 rider, crashed roughly ninety-seven kilometres into the first leg of the Rallye du Maroc and was knocked unconscious. As Andújar approached the scene, he was contacted by the race’s medical team to stop and provide help, which he and co-driver Bernardo Graue obliged.

“We spent 25 minutes at the scene trying to help doctors stabilise the driver,” Andujar explained on social media. Although he usually provides daily updates, he opted to wait until Tuesday after Stage #2 out of respect for Baudry’s family. The drivers and doctors then loaded Baudry onto the helicopter and he was flown to hospital in Zagora. From there, Andújar and Graue returned to their Can-Am Maverick R to continue the stage.

Unfortunately, by the time they finished the stage, Baudry had died from his injuries. A Leetchi was launched on Tuesday to raise money to support his family.

“When we arrived, we learned that the driver didn’t make it and passed away at the hospital in Zagora. The entire rally deeply mourns this loss,” Andújar continued. “All my respect and condolences to the family.”

João Ferreira had a nightmare start to the Rallye du Maroc when his ERTF navigation and GPS devices malfunctioned during Stage #1 on Monday. Fortunately, the FIA heard his pleas on Tuesday and corrected his time, reducing it from 3:27:16 to 2:19:52.

The first GPS unit suddenly stopped working 76.62 kilometres into the opening stage, as did the secondary unit at KM 88.36. Unable to figure out where they were going, Ferreira and co-driver Filipe Palmeiro stopped to contact Race Control to inform them of the issue. They were advised to follow other competitors in the meantime, but this proved difficult with the Sentinel system, which warns them of nearby dangers, offline.

“In some places it was really dangerous because of the dust and without the Sentinel they couldn’t overtake us,” Palmeiro explained to Cross-Country Rally News after Stage #1. “It was really tough, but we finished.

“I think some work needs to be done on this GPS issue, but that’s racing. Anyway, we did a very good job in these conditions. It wasn’t easy because of the rocks and dunes, but Joao drove very well.

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t push in this situation and we’re no longer in contention for a good result. I think that the FIA, the ERTF and everyone involved will have to rethink what’s happening, because it’s not normal.”

Mathieu Serradori has been disqualfied from the Rallye du Maroc after FIA stewards found two of the wheels on his Century CR7-T were underweight and had beadlocks installed.

At the end of Stage #1 on Monday, two of Serradori’s wheel rims were subjected to a random inspection. When measuring them, both were under the minimum weight of twelve kilograms with one weighing in at 11.006 kg and the other at 10.946 kg. Article 285-11.6 of the FIA’s International Sporting Code Appendix J stipulates that “only rims made from aluminum alloy and weighing more than 12 kg are authorised.”

An underweight wheel would usually just result in a fine, though the wheels were also found to have screws attached to keep the tyre’s beads secured to the wheel. Such a process is known as beadlock. ISC Appendix J’s Article 285-8 states the “use of any ‘Beadlock’ type device is forbidden” for four-wheel-drive cars like the Century.

Serradori’s team explained they had used beadlocks at the Baja Morocco, which took place a week before the Rallye du Maroc and is not under FIA sanction. According to the stewards’ report, they also admitted they were unaware of their ban from FIA events and that they “did not know anything about minimum weight limits. […] They have a person in the team responsible for tyres and rims, but this person also did not warn them about any weight limits.”

The misunderstanding can likely be attributed to the fact that Serradori previously drove the Century CR6, a two-wheel-drive machine where beadlocks are allowed and are not subject to weight requirements.

The folks at MCE-5 Development and Wevers Sport must be elated at how their creation fared in Tuesday’s Rallye du Maroc stage. Taurus T3 Max drivers swept the top eight in the Challenger category, while their new works programme EnergyLandia Taurus Factory Team finished first, second, and third in class with Michał Goczał leading the way.

The Goczał family dominated Stage #2 from start to finish. Michał and his brother Marek Goczał battled for the lead throughout the day, while the latter’s son Eryk Goczał fell behind early due to a tyre puncture but worked his way back up the order. He passed his father halfway before both of them got by Taurus colleague Mitch Guthrie of Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team in the final sixty kilometres.

BBR Motorsport drivers filled the next spots with Marcelo Gastaldi, Khalifa Al-Attiyah, Nicolás Cavigliasso, and Dania Akeel. The Arcane T3 of Hans Weijs Jr. and G Rally OT3 of Rui Carneiro rounded out the top ten.

Even without the Taurus onslaught, Tuesday was an uncharacteristically bad outing for Can-Am in Challenger. Points leader Rokas Baciuška finished eleventh after the belt on his Maverick snapped twice, but maintains his advantage in the standings because Cavigliasso’s sixth means he missed out on bonus points awarded to the top five. Baciuška leads Cavigliasso by 42 points and can secure the Challenger title if he beats the latter at any point or Cavigliasso fails to win two of the last three legs.

Al-Attiyah’s brother Nasser Al-Attiyah battled with his former ride at Toyota Gazoo Racing, now piloted by Lucas Moraes, for the Ultimate stage win. Although Nasser rapidly closed the gap after the final waypoint, he ran out of time as Moraes beat him by thirteen seconds. His Dacia colleague Sébastien Loeb joined him on the class podium after holding off Guillaume de Mévius with a fifteen-second edge.

Tragedy befell the Rallye du Maroc on Monday when Frédéric Baudry fell in the dunes during Stage #1, succumbing to his injuries later in the afternoon. He was 46 years old.

The Frenchman was making his second World Rally-Raid Championship start after finishing seventy-third in the Rally2 category at the 2023 Rallye du Maroc, with hopes of eventually doing the Dakar Rally. Riding a Kove 450 Rally prepared by Noamde Racing, he finished ninety-second in class in the Prologue on Sunday.

The accident occurred roughly ninety-seven kilometres into the stage, just past halfway. According to race director David Castéra, Baudry was unconscious when medical help arrived. He was airlifted to hospital in Zagora but died at 4:45 PM local time.

“This evening, the entire team is deeply shaken by the tragic loss of Fred,” reads a statement from Nomade Racing. “Our sincerest thoughts go first to his wife and children.

“Fred, prepare some beautiful tracks for us up there! We would have loved to support you all the way to the end of your Dakar dream…”

After Ricky Brabec‘s crash in Stage #1, Ross Branch simply needs to reach the finish on Friday to secure the World Rally-Raid Championship in RallyGP.

Brabec entered the Rallye du Maroc trailing Branch by nine points, but exited after the first day when he hurt his right knee on a landing at KM 77. He was able to ride to the finish, but the pain was too much for him to continue.

“I caught Pablo (Quintanilla) early on and we were riding really well together but then soon as we got to the dunes, I jumped a dune but when I landed I bottomed the frame out on the moguls that was on the other side,” Brabec explained. “That meant the first thing that hit the ground was my right leg which absorbed all the energy in the landing. For the remainder of stage I then had to take it easy. It’s a bummer I’m out as I’ve let the team down as I felt that this was the rally for me to shine, but Dakar is more important.”

Honda team-mate Adrien Van Beveren is the only other rider with a mathematical chance at the title as he trails Branch by sixteen points. Even then, his chances are slim as he would have needed Branch to finish last among the seven points-eligible riders while he won. With Brabec dubiously taking that spot instead, Van Beveren’s only hope now is to finish top two while Branch retires.

Of course, Van Beveren can only control his own performance. He described the first stage as a “tough day” after starting fifth and struggling to navigate with the new roadbook tablet. Van Beveren settled for seventh.