Starting with a Prologue stage near Bisha on January 3rd, competitors 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 honors 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.
Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah is a five-time winner of the event and the defending W2RC champion. He 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.
Nine-time WRC champion Sébastien Loeb has yet to fulfill 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.
Fine tuning and ongoing work has been carried out with the Toyota’s suspension in recent weeks and Al-Rajhi clinched an emphatic win in Jeddah shortly before Christmas in the final shakedown of the car before Dakar. Overdrive Racing’s Juan Cruz Yacopini and Rokas Baciuška are also registered for the Drivers’ Championship. The latter triumphed in the SSV category in 2022 and 2023 and stepped up for more success in Challenger last year.
Toyota Gazoo Racing also fields a DKR Hilux for Henk Lategan and a Hilux IMT Evo for Saood Variawa. Veteran South African Giniel de Villiers won the event outright with Volkswagen in 2009 and is also entered in an IMT Evo, but is not registered for the W2RC.
The X-Raid Mini JCW Team enjoyed a successful 2024 campaign across a wide range of Bajas and has a strong lineup to challenge for honors in 2025. Team principal Sven Quandt was a major part of Team Audi Sport’s Dakar success in 2024 and has worked on the development of a petrol engine for the Mini JCW Rally this year.
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 honors 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.
Joan ‘Nani’ Roma has won the Dakar on two wheels and in a car and crews the fourth Raptor with fellow Spaniard Alex Haro. He carried out much of the test and development work over recent months and tackled select events last year, including topping the times at the Hungarian Baja in August.
Other W2RC registered drivers likely to push for the top 10 include Mathieu Serradori (Century CR-7) and Martin Prokop (Ford Raptor).
Overdrive Racing is also running a Toyota for former Dakar motorcycle winners Toby Price and Sam Sunderland. Australian Price will drive with Briton Sunderland navigating on their first real taste of four-wheel competition, but they are not registered for the W2RC.
To make the competition as fair as possible in the flagship Ultimate category, a series of proposals have been approved in the FIA Cross-Country Rally Sporting Regulations to finalize the deployment of the FIA torque meter for the first time in 2025.
This will be the primary system for monitoring and controlling powertrain performance in Ultimate group cars. Sporting penalties of 10 seconds per infringement will be imposed for up to five, 30 seconds for six to 10 or a fixed penalty of 10 minutes per stage for more than 10 infringements.
The Cross-Country Rally Commission carried out an assessment in 2024 and has restructured the points-scoring system. For the Dakar, the points scale of 50, 40, 30, 26, 23, 20, 17, 13, 11, 9, 7, 6, 5, and 4 is in situ and the event will also see four points awarded for classified competitors from 16th place onwards and two points awarded to unclassified competitors.
Team BBR, the G Rally Team, and X-Raid set for Challenger battle
With Can-Am switching its attention to the SSV category from the start of 2025, Team BBR, the G Rally Team and X-raid-built Yamaha YXZs start as the favorites to tussle for honors in the Challenger category.
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.
Argentina’s David Zille, last year’s Jordan Baja winner Khalid Al-Jafla, Portugal’s Gonçalo Guerreiro, American Corbin Leaverton, and Pole Adam Kus complete the line-up of registered Taurus drivers. Both Guerreiro and Leaverton will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Quintero and Guthrie, as they represent the Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team USA by BFG.
Puck Klaassen and Rui Carneiro fly the flag for the G Rally Team in their OT3s, and Mario Franco and Pedro Gonçalves will be aiming for honors in their X-Raid-developed YXZ 1000Rs.
Can-Am Factory Team looks for SSV success in new Maverick R
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 Can-Am Factory Team and the South Racing Can-Am Team will be hoping to continue their remarkable run of success at the Dakar. The American duo of Sara Price and Sean Berriman starts as the favorites to claim maximum W2RC points in the new machine, while Fernando Alvarez (last year’s winner of the FIA World Baja Cup’s SSV category) and Manuel Andújar will drive new Mavericks under the South Racing banner.
Registered competition comes from a pair of Polaris RXRs in the hands of the Italian duo of Enrico Gaspari and Michele Cinotto, a South Racing Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo RR for Diego Martinez, and private Can-Am entries for Claude Fournier, Alexandre Pinto, Carlos Vento, and Roger Grouwels. Pinto won the Road to Dakar Challenge at the Rally of Morocco back in October.
It is quite likely that the outright winner of the SSV section will be a driver who is not registered for the W2RC. Multiple Dakar champion Fernando Lopez and American teammate Hunter Miller wheel out a pair of factory Maverick Rs, while former French biker Xavier de Soultrait has entered in a Polaris, and the talented Gerard Farrés and Sebastian Guayasamin drive a pair of Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo RRs.
The route
The route for the 47th running of the world’s most famous off-road event is foreboding, challenging, and features hundreds of kilometers 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 – leading entries (W2RC registered only):
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 Monleón (ESP) Toyota GR DKR Hilux
204. Seth Quintero (USA)/Dennis Zenz (DEU) Toyota GR DKR Hilux
207. Jean-Luc Ceccaldi (FRA)/Delphine Delfino (FRA) MD Optimus
209. Mathieu Serradori (FRA)/Loic Minaudier (FRA) Century CR7
210. Rokas Baciuška (LTU)/Oriol Mena (ESP) Toyota Hilux Overdrive
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Timetable of events
Wednesday, January 1
Accreditation and administration, Start camp, Bisha 07.00hrs-21.00hrs
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