2023 Rallye du Maroc: Janus van Kasteren wins final T5 championship

Trucks are a beloved category whenever they appear at the Dakar Rally, but their limited presence beyond that means 2023 is the final year where they have a World Rally-Raid Championship to compete for. After winning Dakar in January, Janus van Kasteren can call himself the final T5 champion after surviving a brutal and rather controversial Rallye du Maroc.

Van Kasteren entered Morocco with a nine-point lead in the championship after defeating Martin Macík Jr. at Dakar. With Tomáš Vrátný forty-seven points back, the second and final round of the T5 season was effectively a one-on-one.

Macík had the dominant truck as he won the Prologue followed by Stages #1 and #3, while van Kasteren’s rally began on an inauspicious note when a branch went through his windshield in the Prologue and shattered it followed by a pair of broken left shock absorbers in Stage #1. Van Kasteren also lost time in the latter when he had to stop to assist team-mate Michiel Becx, who missed a waypoint and got stuck in a dune pan for an hour due to a flat right front tyre. As Macík took Stage #1, van Kasteren finished sixth and trailed by 1:32:30, a virtually impossible gap to close on pace alone.

He finally regained his footing by winning the second stage before edging out Macík for the Stage #4 victory by just two minutes, though Macík still held the overall going into the last stage as penalties plagued the rest of the field. However, the tables turned yet again when Macík was disqualified because his truck’s turbocharger restrictor was deemed too large by the FIA. While he is appealing the ruling, the penalty blew the doors wide open for van Kasteren to seal the title for good, albeit in rather ugly fashion as his truck’s chassis broke in Stage #5. He fell to fourth overall as a result, though his Team de Rooy still enjoyed a double-victory day as Becx managed a third-place run to win the overall.

“To become world champion, we had to finish, so that was the most important thing,” said van Kasteren. “It happened fifty kilometres before the end, which is of course a shame. End of the rally, Michiel has won. Also fun and secured the world title.”

Van Kasteren joins Kees Koolen as the only W2RC T5 champions. Despite the trucks’ popularity, the two-race schedule is the smallest of all FIA categories and does not justify a championship; T2 for production cars, which consistently had just two entries—from the same team, no less—at Dakar and Morocco, also does not have a trophy.

“The competitors are mainly interested in Dakar, so that’s why we decided to stop the T5 championship,” FIA cross-country rally category manager Jerome Roussel explained in July. “But the T5 are still there. They are still very welcome. They bring a part of the show which is very interesting. What they need is stability, so now we have FIA regulations in place and it’s planned to remain as it is.”

Vrátný finished third overall and first among W2RC-eligible drivers, enabling him to steal runner-up in the standings from Macík.

Anja Van Loon, the third Team de Rooy competitor, was fifth in her first T5 W2RC start after racing at Dakar in a T3.

T5 overall results

Finish	Number	Driver	Co-Driver	Mechanic	Team	Time	Margin
1	506	Michiel Becx*	Wulfert Van Ginkel	Edwin Kuijpers	Team de Rooy	21:32:34	Leader
2	503	Gerrit Zuurmond*	Tjeerd Van Ballegooy	Klaas Kwakkel	Rainbow Truck Team	24:02:59	+ 2:30:25
3	502	Tomáš Vrátný	Bartłomiej Boba	Jaromir Martinec	Fesh Fesh Team	27:05:46	+ 5:33:12
4	500	Janus van Kasteren	Darek Rodewald	Marcel Snijders	Team de Rooy	33:01:10	+ 11:28:36
5	507	Anja Van Loon*	Marije van Ettekoven	Floor Maten	Team de Rooy	49:02:54	+ 27:30:20
6	505	Gert Huzink*	Rob Buursen	Martin Roesink	Riwald Dakar Team	59:36:34	+ 38:04:00
DNF	504	Javier Mariezcurrena*	Facun Vitoria Salaberria	Angel Iribarren Sanzberro	Truck Navarra Competición	DNF	N/A
DNF	509	Vaidotas Paskevicius*	Slavomir Volkov	Gytis Gaspariūnas	Fesh Fesh Team	DNF	N/A
DNF	510	Egbert Wingens*	Marijn Beekmans	Jan Paul Van Der Poel	DDW Rallyteam	DNF	N/A
DSQ	501	Martin Macík Jr.	František Tomášek	David Švanda	MM Technology	18:53:50	DSQ

* – Not competing in World Rally-Raid Championship

T5 stage winners

Stage	Driver	Time
Prologue	Michiel Becx	13:33.2
Stage #1	Tomáš Vrátný	5:07:19
Stage #2	Janus van Kasteren	3:30:26
Stage #3	Janus van Kasteren	3:40:31
Stage #4	Janus van Kasteren	4:15:35
Stage #5	Gert Huzink	2:20:07

Overall winners

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

W2RC T5 standings

Drivers’ standings

Rank	Driver	Points	Margin
1	Janus van Kasteren	157	Leader
2	Tomáš Vrátný	118	– 39
3	Martin Macík Jr.	102	– 55
	Kees Koolen	0	– 157

Co-drivers’ standings

Co-drivers and mechanics are grouped into the same championship.

Rank	Co-Driver	Driver	Points	Margin
1	Darek Rodewald	Janus van Kasteren	157	Leader
1	Marcel Snijders	Janus van Kasteren	157	Leader
3	Bartłomiej Boba	Tomáš Vrátný	118	– 39
3	Jaromir Martinec	Tomáš Vrátný	118	– 39
5	František Tomášek	Martin Macík Jr.	102	– 55
5	David Švanda	Martin Macík Jr.	102	– 55
	Wouter de Graaff	Kees Koolen	0	– 157
	Wouter Rosegaar	Kees Koolen	0	– 157