Dakar Rally 2025

The ASO has officially announced to remove the quads class for the 2025 Dakar Rally.

https://www.thecheckeredflag.co.uk/2...5-dakar-rally/

Mattias Ekström has left Audi and joined Ford for the 2025 Dakar Rally.

https://media.ford.com/content/fordm...kar-rally.html

Entry list was published today:
https://www.dakar.com/en/competitors

Main car category competitors:

Toyota GR (Hilux): De Villiers (RSA), Lucas Moraes (BRA), Quintero (USA), Botterill (RSA), Variawa (RSA), Lategan (RSA)

Toyota Overdrive Racing (Hilux): Al Rajhi (KSA), Yacopini (ARG), Baciuska (LIT), Price (AUS), Mannama (EST), Marcos Moraes (BRA)

Ford M-Sport (Ranger): Carlos Sainz (ESP), Roma (ESP), Ekstrom (SWE), Guthrie (USA)

Dacia (Buggy Sandrider): Al Attiyah (QAT), Loeb (FRA), Gutierrez (ESP)

Mini X-Raid (new Countryman): Chicherit (FRA), Guillaume De Mevius (BEL), Krotov (RUS), Jurkevicius (LIT), Baud (FRA), Ferreira (POR)

Then we have Prokop in his team's Ranger, many Century buggies and many MD Rallye Sport buggies.

Little things about the Dacia Sandrider...
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ERHjRY7hRBg

Let's see if Prodrive designed this car better, without the Hunter's big flaws.

i want loeb to win so baaad. its been some years already cheering for him. not much luck

Bikes - RallyGP entries:

* Honda: #3 CHI Pablo Quintanilla, #4 USA Ricky Brabec, #5 USA Skyler Howes, #42 FRA Adrien van Beveren, #68 ESP Tosha Schareina.
* KTM: #2 AUS Daniel Sanders, #7 RSA Bradley Cox, #8 CZE Martin Michek, #47 ARG Kevin Benavides, #77 ARG Luciano Benavides, #142 Stefan Svitko.
* Hero: #1 BWA Ross Branch, #6 CHI José Ignacio Cornejo, #9 GER Sebastian Bühler.
* Sherco: #15 ESP Lorenzo Santolino, #19 POR Rui Gonçalves
* Fantic: #17 UAE Mohammed Balooshi.
* Husqvarna: #24 RSA Aaron Mare.
* Kove: #98 USA Mason Klein.
* Rieju: #54 BOL Daniel Nosiglia.
* Yamaha: #30 POR Antonio Maio.

The short prologue of today was won by Henk Lategan (Toyota), in front of Ekstrom (Ford) and Al Attiyah (Dacia). Tomorrow the first real stage, 413 Km.

Guerlain Chicherit (Mini) won today's stage, in front of Quintero and Variawa (both works Toyota). Gaps are still small, 27 drivers within 20 minutes. The only top driver who run into trouble was Baciuska (Toyota Overdrive), who lost 2h 19m.
Next is the 48h marathon stage.

This year you can also follow the times on ewrc-results:
https://www.ewrc-results.com/results...ultimate-2025/

First half of the marathon stage done, top 3 so far:
1 - Yazeed Al Rajhi (Toyota Overdrive)
2 - Nasser Al Attiyah (Dacia) +1m 19s
3 - Mattias Ekstrom (Ford) +8m 55s

Lucas Moraes got stuck in sand and finished +32m 12s, Loeb stopped twice for "fan problem" according to Dakar website and is at +32m 30s, Sainz rolled but continued with damaged car with +59m 19s
Chicherit, Prokop and Quintero also lost more than 30 minutes from the lead, Variawa and Gutierrez more than one hour.

Tomorrow second half of the stage and at the end we can start looking at the overall standings.

Loeb said in the highlights video that it's an electrical problem: "It stops, it starts on its own, it stops again. There's no much you can do."
So far 2 Dacia Sandrider out of 3 with problems, but I don't know if Gutierrez had technical trouble or made a mistake.