Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles

Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen won the United States Grand Prix from sixth place on the grid, having contended with brake struggles throughout the race. 

The Dutch driver started out of position after facing a lap time deletion for track limits during qualifying, but was able to return to the front of the pack as the race went on. Verstappen did have competition for the top spot, however, with Lewis Hamilton closing in on him in the closing stages of the race on fresher tyres. 

It was a relatively close battle to the end, with Verstappen finishing about two seconds ahead of Hamilton to secure his 50th race victory in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship. 

Although he was pleased with the result, Verstappen said that he wasn’t as comfortable with the car as he had been during the sprint sessions, with brake troubles and less of a pace advantage to his competitors. 

“It feels incredible to win my 50th Grand Prix here in Austin, I’m very proud of course but I want to keep pushing for more. Starting in P6 today was interesting, I worked my way slowly through to the front.

Toyota rising development driver Jesse Love will defect to Chevrolet in 2024. On Wednesday, Richard Childress Racing announced Love will drive the #2 Chevrolet Camaro full-time in the 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series season with returning sponsorship from Whelen Engineering.

“I’ve been fortunate to gain a lot of racing experience at a young age, but nothing compares to the opportunity to race for a legendary team like Richard Childress Racing,” said Love. “I have so much respect for Richard Childress and am extremely grateful to be able to race and learn with one of the most successful teams in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.”

Love is fresh off winning the ARCA Menards Series championship for Venturini Motorsports, scoring ten victories and top-five finishes in all but three races. Prior to competing for the national series title, he won back-to-back ARCA Menards Series West crowns and also scored a victory on the East side in 2023. He has raced in ARCA since 2020, adding two more wins before going full-time.

Also in 2023, he joined TRICON Garage for a three-race schedule in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. He finished ninth in his début at Gateway followed by a thirteenth in his latest start at Kansas. His third and final race is planned for the season finale at Phoenix.

Despite his success at the regional levels and being touted as one of Toyota’s top prospects, top opportunities with the manufacturer are relatively scarce. Love explained that he has “dreamed of racing at the highest levels of the sport since I was a young kid, and the path to the NASCAR Cup Series seems more clear with this opportunity.”

Robby Gordon‘s SPEED UTV brand has been making waves in the off-road community since its introduction before beginning competition in 2023. This past weekend, the manufacturer enjoyed its strongest race so far as his son Max Gordon was the fastest UTV overall in the NORRA 500.

Five SPEED UTVs took part, all of which completed the race. Max’s SPEED UTT, a racing variant of the El Diablo, won the Evolution Production Turbo UTV class with jet ski world champion Kole Cramer as his co-driver; the two’s total time of 9:16:11 was nearly twenty-five minutes faster than the Polaris of Javier Gonzalez. Robby was third in class, followed by John Spar (seventh in the SPEED UTV Bandit) and Brad Halco (eleventh in a SPEED UTT). The fifth SPEED, an El Jefe model, won the Evolution Four-Seat class with Chris Knippelberg.

SPEED UTV, which has occupied much of Gordon’s time, partnered with NORRA to provide a support programme for participating drivers at the 500. The company also offered USD$10 thousand (€9,463.55) for the winners of the Evolution Production Turbo UTV and Evolution 2000 classes, the latter claimed by Thomas Purcell.

The younger Gordon’s victory marks the first major triumph for SPEED UTV since débuting competitively. Both Gordons retired from King of the Hammers in February before tackling the Mint 400 a month later, where Max finished eighth in class. Robby’s increasing focus on the company forced his Stadium Super Trucks to drop a trip to Toronto in 2022, while their 2023 calendar was only two rounds long though returns to Australia have been considered. In August, Gordon set up a new engine division for SPEED UTV after moving to a North Carolina facility formerly owned by NASCAR team Gillett Evernham Motorsports

Dave Mason Jr. won the overall among all forty-nine finishers for the second year in a row. Defending NORRA 500 UTV champion P.J. Jones, a friend of Gordon’s, retired after three stages.

Andrea Schiumarini will return to the Dakar Rally in 2024, driving a Century CR6 with Andrea Succi as his navigator. The effort will be fielded by TH-Trucks.

“Let’s say that it is difficult to remove the sand of that race from your helmet and the desire to experience the Dakar adventure is always around the corner,” wrote Schiumarini. “I thought number 4 was a nice way to enter a new chapter in my sporting history. But, at the same time, I wanted to be there with those who shared part of this journey of mine. Here is the Andrea Schiumarini and Andrea Succi team, alias AS2, ready to take this beautiful Century CR6 among the dunes of Saudi Arabia to the Dakar 2024.”

Schiumarini made his Dakar début in 2019, driving a Ford Raptor to an overall finish of fifty-fourth and third in the T2 category. He moved up to T1 in 2020, placing fifty-third overall in a Mitsubishi Pajero. His most recent Dakar in 2022, racing a T2-spec Pajero that received significant upgrades to comply with T1 regulations, ended with a seventy-first in the general ranking.

He did not return to the race in 2023 as he instead prioritised amateur events. Schiumarini planned to run the Africa Eco Race in March before it was postponed to January 2024, where it will clash with the Dakar Rally, so he flipped over to the Morocco Desert Challenge in April. Schiumarini was no stranger to Morocco, having competed in the 2012 Tuareg Rallye where he finished third.

Racing his Pajero, Schiumarini was set back by turbo issues in Stage #5 due to intense heat, but was able to rejoin the race the following day. He finished thirty-first overall.

The future of the World Rally-Raid Championship got to showcase their skills in premier machinery last Thursday hours after the conclusion of the 2023 season at the Rallye du Maroc. Six drivers, mostly coming from the T3 and T4 classes, traded in their side-by-side vehicles for five T1+ cars for the W2RC Next Gen Tryouts, while two others from the bike and co-driving realm sat behind the wheel of a T3 car.

The tryout participants were headlined by 2023 T3 and T4 champions Seth Quintero and Rokas Baciuška. Quintero got to try the Toyota GR DKR Hilux that won the T1 championship with Nasser Al-Attiyah and Toyota Gazoo Racing, while Baciuška was in Bahrain Raid Xtreme‘s Prodrive Hunter of Sébastien Loeb. Baciuška, who plans to move up to T3 in 2024, already has some experience in a T1 after finishing ninth at the Baja España Aragón in July in a Hilux.

“T3 back in the day wasn’t the most competitive and then this next generation of drivers came in and became, in my opinion, one of the most competitive classes,” commented Quintero. “We’ve all gone head to head for so long and I know that there are some spots opening up and we’re basically all fighting for those spots. Nothing against any of the old drivers, there’s definitely been some drivers that have been around for a very long time and who knows how much longer they’re going to be around, so hopefully one of these days we’ll step up and take the spot. That’s what we’ve been doing. That’s what the Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team’s for, it’s trying to create spots for kids—not just kids, but for amateurs to learn.”

Mitch Guthrie, who finished runner-up to Quintero in the T3 standings, piloted the Ford Ranger T1+ from M-Sport and Neil Woolridge Motorsport. The Ranger, the newest addition to the T1+ field, finished third overall in its maiden W2RC start at the Rallye du Maroc with Nani Roma.

Cristina Gutiérrez, fourth in T3, also drove Loeb’s Hunter. Coincidentally, the two were team-mates who won the Extreme E championship in 2022.

The 2023 Morocco Desert Challenge took place in unusually hot conditions for April, tragically contributing to the death of bike competitor Bram van der Wouden from heat stroke. In hopes of reducing the risks of repeat medical incidents in 2024, race officials announced Friday that the Malle Moto class will not be held while all competitors are required to present a passing fitness test from within the past year.

Van der Wouden raced in the Malle Moto category, which is reserved for bike riders competing without any assistance from a team or crew. A former Dakar Rally Malle Moto alumnus, the 48-year-old was discovered by his peers lying on the ground next to his bike during a stage, dying from heat stroke by the time medical workers arrived on the scene. His passing came just a day after the death of co-driver Laurent Lichtleuchter, who was killed in a fiery accident that resulted in burns and hospitalisation for his driver Patrice Garrouste.

In the wake of the tragedies, the MDC elected to drop Malle Moto from the 2024 programme. With registration already underway, the race has offered Malle Moto applicants a refund of their entry deposit or they can join up with a team. Other available bike categories include those separated by engine size (Standard for 250–600cc and Big Bike for 601–1300cc), a class for female riders, and the Veterans Cup for those over the age of fifty.

“The extreme conditions of the MDC2023 were felt hardest by the Malle Moto riders,” reads a statement from the race. “A whole day on the bike and then tinkering late into the evening in extreme conditions. Without the assistance of a team, this proved unjustifiable for some participants in this category.”

Airbag vests have also been made mandatory for all bike riders.

Nasser Al-Attiyah won the 2023 World Rally-Raid Championship in dominant fashion, but probably could have clinched it even sooner with the 2024 rulebook. The new policies approved by the FIA World Motor Sport Council last Thursday for the 2024 season include permitting drivers who retired from rallies to keep any points they earned earlier in the race and confirming plans to let the top-level Ultimate (formerly known as T1) class start at the front regardless of how they did in the previous day, provided they proved they are faster than other classes.

Under the current rules, the top five for each FIA class receives bonus points at the end of a stage, with the winner getting five, second gets four, and so on. However, if a driver fails to finish the rally (not to be confused with retiring from a stage and then rejoining the next day), they lose every point earned in the event up to that moment.

Al-Attiyah, who mathematically clinched his second straight title during Stage #2 of the season-ending Rallye du Maroc, might have done so during the penultimate round at the Desafío Ruta 40 if the new rule existed in 2023. He won the first three stages of the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, which netted him fifteen stage points, before he was forced to bow out entirely due to severe damage in a roll. He would have still lost the championship lead to Sébastien Loeb after the ADDC, though his deficit would have only been by one point instead of sixteen.

Loeb’s own retirement from the Sonora Rally dropped him from first to third in points. Had Had his eight stage points prior to his crash remained (third in Stage #1 and a win in Stage #2), he would have remained second in the standings even if it mattered little since his team skipped Argentina.

The FIM does not award points per stage.

The FIA World and Middle East Cups for Cross-Country Bajas and FIM Bajas World Cup will be cut short by a round. Due to the war between Israel and Hamas in neighbouring Gaza, Jordan Motorsport announced Sunday the Jordan Baja scheduled for 23–25 November has been cancelled.

Held since 2018, the Jordan Baja was supposed to be the season finale for all three mentioned series in 2023. Its slot on the calendar has changed multiple times since its inception, with the 2021 race being in March before shifting to February in 2022 followed by November for 2023.

The 2023 edition was originally planned for 2–4 November, where it was to be the penultimate event for the three championships, until it was moved back by two weeks and ultimately swapped slots with the Dubai International Baja to become the finale.

Dubai will now conclude the season on 9–11 November.

“Given the current geopolitical situation, the FIM and Jordan Motorsports (JMS) regret to inform that the organiser of the Jordan Baja has been forced to cancel the 2023 edition which was due to be held from 23 to 26 November,” reads a Monday statement from the FIM. “Unfortunately the circumstances mean that a replacement event can not be planned, so consequently the Dubai International Baja will now become the last round of the 2023 FIM Bajas World Cup. Hence no modification regarding the number of results counting for the final ranking will be made, with the six best results still being taken into account for the final 2023 classification.”

Four months after its reveal, the Apache APH-01 will finally enter its first race at this weekend’s Baja Portalegre 500 with Mathieu Serradori and Loïc Minaudier as driver and navigator, respectively. Sports & You, the Portuguese and Spanish distributor for rally manufacturers like Citroën, Opel, and Peugeot, will support the effort.

“Off-road is a discipline in which Sports & You has been a regular player, winning the national championship with Miguel Barbosa, our top-line driver that has been representing us in recent seasons,” said Sports & You director José Pedro Fontes. “We want to return with even more involvement and we are now debriefing the upcoming season.

“We have been following Apache’s programme, whose APH01 is using very interesting technologies and aligned with our future strategy of contributing to environmental sustainability and supporting projects that elevate motorsports to leaders of eco technologies. We have set in place this entry for Portalegre and are keen to see what the future holds.”

The APH-01 is touted by creator Apache Automotive as the “most advanced T3 prototype ever designed,” featuring both an electric and a three-cylinder Peugeot internal combustion engine on each end. The latter serves as the main power generator with 150 kW while the electric unit adds an additional 50 kW, and it operates on second-generation biofuels. The vehicle’s hybrid nature also means it is capable of regenerative braking and reducing fuel consumption by twenty percent.

Its body is composed of flax fibre, which is derived from flax plant and lighter than standard carbon fibre; recycled carbon fibre is also used to make the dashboard. The body paneling is held together using linen fibres, further reducing the car’s weight and is intended to absorb lighter impacts and vibrations.

Homestead-Miami Speedway hosted the final race for NASCAR’s Cup, Xfinity, and Craftsman Truck Series for two decades before relinquishing the slot to Phoenix Raceway, but its current slot in the penultimate round of the playoffs still makes it a viable site for championship implications.

In the Cup Series, it was a battle of the B’s as Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney, and William Byron fought to clinch their spot in the final round. Although Byron had the upper hand on the final restart following Denny Hamlin‘s wreck, Bell passed him with sixteen laps to go to take it for himself.

Bell had to fight for every position after finishing a dismal twenty-second in Stage #2 while Blaney won the stage.

“Today was just a whirlwind, for sure,” said Bell. “To be able to overcome and to be in that bad of a spot, I was a quarter straightaway from going a lap down. It was just incredible the difference a couple pit stop adjustments will do to your car. I’ve always been one that says that the car is everything. The driver’s job is to maximise the car. If the car is fast, you do good. If the car is slow, you do bad. I think today was the epitome of that.

“We were really struggling. I was the slowest car on the track at one point in the race. A couple good adjustments later, we became one of the fastest ones.”

In September 2022, Kamena Rally Team revealed their new Polaris RZR Pro R that they hoped to use in the 2024 Dakar Rally. Unfortunately for the Polish outfit, their début will have to wait a year as the Polaris does not meet FIA regulation.

The team would have raced in the T4 class for production side-by-side vehicles with Tomasz Białkowski as driver and Dariusz Baśkiewicz by his side. Białkowski finished thirteenth overall and fourth in T4 in the 2022 FIA European Cup for Cross-Country Bajas standings, winning the class at the season-opening Baja TT Dehesa Extremadura.

Their Polaris RZR is capable of 225 horsepower, though they had to install a limiter to restrict it to 170 hp to comply with rules. Despite this, the car was still flagged for other concerns that they felt could not be addressed before vehicles must be in Barcelona by in December.

“It’s not easy for us to share such news, but unfortunately our dreams of taking part in the Dakar Rally have to wait a while longer,” begins a statement from the team. “We have made a difficult, but right decision for the entire team to postpone the plans related to the ‘Nasi na Dakar’ project until next year.

“There are several reasons for this, and the main one is the fact that our Polaris RZR Pro R with a 2.0 engine has not been certified for the T4 category. Unfortunately, the preparation of the vehicle exceeded the time limit, and both we and our Polaris factory team are very interested in ensuring that the white-and-red rally car passes appropriate tests before the start and is reliable during the rally. We also admit that the significant increase in the costs of participation in the Dakar Rally itself is currently beyond our capabilities.

Marcel Schaecht, who fought for France during World War II before going on to race the inaugural Dakar Rally in 1979, passed away last Monday at the age of 99. His death was just three days before his 100th birthday.

Schaecht entered the newly organised Paris–Dakar Rally in a Toyota BJ alongside his daughter Dominique Fondrillon as a support vehicle for son Alain Schaecht‘s Honda 250 XLS bike. The adventure, running from Paris to Dakar across ten thousand kilometres, was another chapter in an eventful life for the family patriarch.

He was born in 1923 to a Belgian soldier while both of his parents worked at the United States Army camp in Gièvres, and he was named after his uncle who died on the day that the armistice to end World War I was signed. After France fell to Germany in 1940, he was working in Montoire where the infamous October handshake between Adolf Hitler and Philippe Pétain took place to begin Vichy France’s role as a Nazi collaborationist. Looking to flee the occupied country, Schaecht joined a recruiter’s office in Blois that was looking for men to build up the Vichy Armistice Army, from which he acquired forged paperwork that he used to cross the demarcation line into Vierzon and the “Free Zone” by early November.

After hiding as a civilian for months, he joined the 21st Colonial Infantry Regiment (now known as the 21st Marine Infantry Regiment). Following the Allied invasion of North Africa and the regiment’s dissolution, Schaecht witnessed the scuttling of the French fleet at Toulon to prevent its seizure by German forces, which he called his “second major event after Montoire.”

He eventually returned to Blois and became part of the French Resistance. When the Western Allies launched the Normandy landings in 1944, he was pursued by the Milice in Montoire before linking up with the Resistance, later saving an American soldier from drowning in the Loir. Schaecht was recruited into Jean de Lattre de Tassigny’s First Army and was promoted to sergeant by the end of the war.

HySE, a research consortium of Japan’s automobile giants, will enter the 2024 Dakar Rally‘s Mission 1000 with a hydrogen-powered car dubbed the HySE-X1.

Short for Hydrogen Small mobility & Engine, HeSE is a research asssociation consisting of Honda, Kawasaki Motors, Suzuki, and Yamaha with Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Toyota as supporting members, with the goal of developing hydrogen engines for “small mobility” such as motorcycles, drones, construction equipment, and Japanese mini-vehicles. The project was founded in May by the four lead manufacturers with approval from the Japanese government’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

The HySE-X1 will by roughly 3.53 meters long, 2.07 m wide, and 1.7 m high while weighing in at 1,500 kilograms. The engine is a liquid-cooled, four-stroke straight-four turbocharged motor in dual overhead camshaft layout with sixteen valves. Said engine is currently used by HySE for its motorcycle projects.

Overdrive Racing will build the car’s chassis. The Belgian team currently fields Toyota Hiluxes in the top-level T1 category of the World Rally-Raid Championship, winning twice in 2023 at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge and Rallye du Maroc, as well as the OT3 Light Prototype in T3, which has enjoyed success in the European and World Bajas Cups.

“We have decided to participate in the Dakar Rally, which we know has a rich history and tradition,” stated HySE chairman and Yamaha R&D executive officer Kenji Komatsu. “Our main reason for participating is to give us the chance to communicate the results of our research in a way that’s easy to understand. Also, by participating in the event, we can identify potential issues and refine our technology to solve the technical themes required for the establishment of hydrogen small mobilities as soon as possible.”

The World Rally-Raid Championship‘s second season has come to close with the Rallye du Maroc. The field of over 260 competitors entered Morocco hoping to make last-ditch charges at championships, use it as a final dress rehearsal for the 2024 Dakar Rally, get used to their new rides ahead of next season. For the final time in 2023, The Checkered Flag had the privilege of covering the rally from long before it began to the final stage.

Missed any of our coverage? We’ve got you covered below!

Pre-race stories

24 November 2022: 2023 Road to Dakar races include W2RC legs, South Africa20 January: TCF‘s Dakar Rally newsroom16 February: Martin Macík Jr. forgoing Abu Dhabi, returning in Morocco7 March: TCF‘s Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge newsroom13 March: 2023 Rallye du Maroc route revealed15 March: Javier Campos plans 2024 Dakar Rally début, may run Morocco3 June: Mathieu Dovèze joins BAS World KTM Racing Team6 June: Apache unveils APH-01 T317 June: Ford Ranger T1+ to tackle Baja Aragón and Rallye du Maroc20 June: 2023 Rallye du Maroc to span 2,240 km22 June: Toby Hederics’ road to 2025 Dakar Rally includes W2RC stops22 June: Amine Echiguer moves up to Rally2 for Rallye du Maroc23 June: Searles brothers enter Rallye du Maroc in Dakar 2025 journey28 June: Borja Pérez plans Rallye du Maroc entry for Dakar 20244 July: Anja van Loon entering Rallye du Maroc, first race for all-female crew5 July: BBR Motorsport partnering with MCE-524 July: Bahrain Raid Xtreme confirms no Argentina, focusing on Morocco and Dakar 202428 July: Dakar-bound Sébastien Herbet heading to Rallye du Maroc4 August: Africa Rallye Team reveals 2023 Rallye du Maroc lineup16 August: Maxime Pouponnot to run Rallye du Maroc in 2025 Dakar Rally campaign21 August: Nasser Al-Attiyah to finish 2023 W2RC season with TGR4 September: TCF‘s Desafío Ruta 40 newsroom5 September: Sebastian Halpern forgoing Rallye du Maroc, 2024 Dakar Rally13 September: Xavier Flick joins Kove Moto factory programme16 September: Romain Bouzigon running Rallye du Maroc in 2025 Dakar Rally quest19 September: Abu Dhabi winner Tobias Ebster to make Rallye du Maroc début20 September: Marshall Meplon to race Rallye du Maroc20 September: Rallye du Maroc to proceed in support of earthquake relief20 September: Skyler Howes joins Monster Energy Honda Rally Team20 September: Samuel Fremy returning to Rallye du Maroc24 September: Fabien Domas switches to GasGas for Morocco, Dakar 20242 October: Guillaume de Mévius to race Toyota Hilux T1+ at Rallye du Maroc3 October: 136 riders make up FIM grid4 October: 102 on FIA entry list, 9 comprise Open entries8 October: MD Rallye Sport reveals “radical” Optimus EVO 59 October: INTERVIEW: Joao Ferreira “really, really looking forward” to new life at Can-Am12 October: Lukas Lauda on W2RC début: “I expect not much but (will) try to learn a lot and finish”12 October: Joaquim Rodrigues out after shakedown crash12 October: Kevin Benavides sitting out Morocco to focus on Dakar

Mid-race stories

13 October: BAIC ORV loses all W2RC points for not entering enough races16 October: INTERVIEW: Austin Jones discusses “really hard” T3 championship battle16 October: Pau Navarro on T1.1 vs. T1+: “We had a touch of reality when Nasser passed me”16 October: W2RC Next Gen Tryouts to take place after Rallye du Maroc18 October: Martin Macík Jr. disqualified18 October: Eryk Goczał, team reprimanded for rescue fire

Overall winners

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Time	Recap
T1	201	Yazeed Al-Rajhi	Toyota Gazoo Racing	14:49:09	Recap
T2	251	Ronald Basso*	Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body	22:14:17	Recap
T3	315	Marek Goczał	EnergyLandia Rally Team	16:22:12	Recap
T4	403	João Ferreira	South Racing Can-Am	18:26:24	Recap
T5	506	Michiel Becx*	Team de Rooy	21:32:34	Recap
RallyGP	8	Toby Price	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	15:56:43	Recap
Rally2	32	Bradley Cox	BAS World KTM Racing Team	17:06:37	Recap
Rally3	164	Cheikh Yves Jacquemain	Africa Rallye Team	23:42:39	Recap
Quad	186	Alexandre Giroud*	Drag’on Rally Team	21:07:24	Recap
Open Auto	601	Jérôme Cambier*	MD Rallye Sport	21:21:46	Recap
Open SSV	653	Tomas Mickus*	BRO Racing	21:42:23	Recap
Road to Dakar Bike	71	Toby Hederics*	BAS World KTM Racing Team	19:11:16	Recap
Road to Dakar SSV	420	William Grarre*	Team Horizon Off-Road	21:50:39	Recap

* – Not competing in World Rally-Raid Championship

Stage recaps

Stage	Date	Overall Cars Winner	Overall Bikes Winner	Recap
Prologue	13 October	Mattias Ekström	Tosha Schareina*	Recap
Stage #1	14 October	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Ross Branch	Recap
Stage #2	15 October	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Tosha Schareina*	Recap
Stage #3	16 October	Mattias Ekström	Tosha Schareina*	Recap
Stage #4	17 October	Stéphane Peterhansel	Luciano Benavides	Recap
Stage #5	18 October	Orlando Terranova	Pablo Quintanilla	Recap

Toby Hederics has a blueprint to take him to his Dakar Rally début in 2025, running races in his home country of Australia as well as select World Rally-Raid Championship events. As it turns out, he only needed one round overseas to already have his registration for Dakar guaranteed.

Hederics and fifty-four other riders entered the W2RC’s season-ending Rallye du Maroc with the goal of winning the Road to Dakar, a programme that waives the Dakar Rally entry fee for the top-performing riders and SSV drivers with no prior experience there. Despite his lack of experience outside of Australia, Hederics impressed as he finished sixth overall in the Rally2 class and seventeenth among all bikes to earn his ticket to Dakar. In the smaller, six-car SSV Road to Dakar, William Grarre did the same after surviving a brutal race.

Jaromír Romančík started on a strong note as he won Stage #1 and was the fastest RtD bike entrant through the rally’s halfway mark after three legs, though Hederics was behind him by just two minutes. A malfunctioning roadbook and a crash in the first third of Stage #4 caused Romančík to lose the top spot, though he managed to finish eleventh in Rally2. Hederics beat him by 7:35 in the fifth and final stage to clinch the RtD; Romančík was the only rider within an hour of Hederics.

While already secured his spot at Dakar 2025, Hederics’ roadmap also includes running the 2024 Rallye du Maroc and Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge to gain more desert racing experience.

“This rally was a lot of firsts for me,” said Hederics. “First time riding the rally bike, first time racing an international rally, first time meeting the race team and first time racing such long days. Everything was new to me so I went in with no real expectations other than to learn and finished the rally to I can qualify for Dakar.