The 2024 Rally dos Sertões was a battle of T1+ machines as the Moraes family’s Toyota GR DKR Hiluxes squared off with defending winner Marcelo Gastaldi‘s Century CR7. In the end, Toyota was on top with Lucas Moraes.
The Toyota Gazoo Racing driver won five of eight stages as well as the Prologue to secure his third win in Brazil’s largest rally raid; he previously claimed the 2019 and 2022 editions. Fellow Hilux driver Adroaldo Weisheimer briefly took the overall lead from Moraes by winning Stage #3 before rolling over the next day; Moraes stopped to attend to Weisheimer but still won the leg anyway.
Gastaldi prevented a full Hilux clean sweep by winning Stage #6, but still trailed Moraes by thirteen minutes. Moraes won the last two days to increase the gap to sixteen. While the last stage was the shortest, literal alarm bells went off when his Hilux lost “a bit of power” with twenty kilometres remaining, but the car was otherwise “perfect” and he reached the finish “without any worries.”
His father Marcos Moraes joined him on the overall podium ahead of Carlos Ambrosio‘s Century CR6.
“Today we just drove along, enjoyed ourselves and that’s it. Sending a kiss to my whole family who must be eager to watch,” Moraes said at the finish of the final stage. “Three-time champion, it’s really exciting.
“Thank you to all of you in the press for covering this and us. Now, we’re going to Brasília to celebrate a lot.”
Although Gastaldi came up short of a repeat, the runner-up added another stout result to the Century CR7, a new T1+ introduced by Century Racing for 2024 that has enjoyed strong performances in China and Morocco. For comparison, Ambrosio’s CR6 is a two-wheel-drive car that competes in the T1.1 subcategory.
The Can-Am Maverick R, another new vehicle to the cross-country realm for 2024, shined by winning the Challenger category with Lelio Carneio with another piloted by Oscar Santos third in class. While it is expected to be homologated by the FIA for international competition in the SSV category in 2025, the Maverick R was permitted by Sertões organisers for Challenger (which is typically reserved for race-built prototype side-by-sides).
Guiga Spinelli missed out on the T1+ podium in the début for his Mitsubishi Triton Ultimate Racing, the first T1+ car for the manufacturer.
Like the four-wheelers, the bike battle was a duel between a 2024 World Rally-Raid Championship regular and the defending Sertões winner. Adrien Metge, normally an SSV co-driver, returned to his roots with a vengeance as he dominated the motorcycle class to score the win on his Yamaha WR450F. His brother Michaël Metge finished sixth in the UTV 2 class as Otávio Hort‘s navigator.
2023 bike victor Mason Klein, also a W2RC veteran, spent much of the rally trying to keep pace with Metge. His hopes of a repeat were dashed in Stage #3 when the centre bolt on his Honda’s triple clamps broke off and caused the handlebars to lock up. He managed to end the race on a high note by winning the last stage.
Klein’s previous team DM Workshop fell short of the top five overall as Guilherme Bissotto was eleven minutes back of Klein’s Honda team-mate Martin Duplessis.
Another W2RC competitor won in Quads as Marcelo Medeiros beat Felipe Viana by nearly three hours.
Seven riders took part as Malle Moto riders who raced without assistance from crews. Jean Michel Zuchelli, who had TXAI Rally Team prepare the bike in advance, was the best finisher of the group. All but one had motorcycles from TXAI, with Marco Aurelio Lehmkuhl being the exception as he was on a Husqvarna 701 Enduro, a far more powerful model than the traditional 450cc rally raid bikes. Still, Lehmkuhl was not the only person with a non-rally bike, let alone solo, as Felipe Pereira used a Husqvarna TE 300 enduro bike. Felipe Limonta entered the rally on a Honda Sahara 300 adventure motorcycle.
The first stage was cancelled due to a collapsed bridge.
