2024 Rallye du Maroc: Nasser Al-Attiyah wins Ultimate, W2RC in Dacia’s debut

The highly anticipated Dacia Sandrider had a début for the ages when Nasser Al-Attiyah and Sébastien Loeb finished 1–2 at the Rallye du Maroc, the former clinching his third consecutive World Rally-Raid Championship in the process.

Al-Attiyah entered the season finale with a 25-point advantage over Yazeed Al-Rajhi. He ran every round prior to Morocco in the Prodrive Hunter before switching to the Sandrider, Prodrive’s newest rally project and Renault’s return to the discipline (a Hunter was still present in Morocco with Marcos Baumgart, who narrowly missed the top ten by two and a half minutes).

While Al-Attiyah led the charge in his title pursuit, there were growing pains among his fellow Sandriders. Disaster almost struck Loeb from the start when the former crashed into a ditch in the Prologue. Cristina Gutiérrez narrowly avoided the same fate, but a mechanical failure in Stage #3 knocked her out of contention.

Fortunately for Loeb, Prologue times do not count towards the final result for FIA categories, and he eventually regained his footing with two stage wins. At the front, Al-Attiyah claimed Stage #1 and never lost the overall lead as he finished on the stage podium in four of five days, with a sixth on the last day to cap off his title.

Al-Rajhi won the penultimate leg, but had to make up over twenty-one minutes on the last day to have a shot. Obviously an impossible task unless Al-Attiyah retired, he ended up finishing fifteenth in Stage #5 to settle for second in points as he did in 2023.

Al-Attiyah remains the only driver to win the World Rally-Raid Championship since its inception in 2022. The title is also his fourth in a row at the international rally raid level after claiming the predecessor FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies the year prior. His navigator Édouard Boulanger, despite joining him midseason, also claimed the co-drivers’ championship for the first time.

“It feels so good to get my seventh win here at Rallye du Maroc,” said Al-Attiyah. “Also to win the FIA World Championship for the third time feels great. On top of everything it’s a win for Dacia in our first rally.”

Loeb’s Stage #5 win propelled him past the Minis of Guillaume de Mévius and Guerlain Chicherit for second behind Al-Attiyah. It is his best Rallye du Maroc finish.

“This is our first rally with Dacia and we’re first and second so that shows we have a really competitive car,” Loeb stated.

De Mévius and Chicherit joined X-raid Team starting at Morocco in a surprise defection from Overdrive Racing. It didn’t take long for either of them to get used to the new Mini JCW Rally 3.0i, with Chicherit winning the Prologue and running third behind de Mévius for much of the rally before retiring on the last day due to damage. His team-mate lost the runner-up spot to Loeb in Stage #5 to a broken engine belt that cost him twelve minutes.

X-raid colleague João Ferreira sacrificed time to help de Mévius, but managed to finish top ten in ninth.

“The engine ran without any problems and we showed that the Mini has great potential,” said X-raid boss Sven Quandt. “Guerlain also did a great job and achieved fantastic stage results. Guillaume had a strong rally. He secured third place on his first outing in the Mini JCW Rally Plus. Thanks also to João, who stopped to help. He can be very satisfied with his first desert rally in the Mini.”

Lucas Moraes won Stage #3 en route to a tenth to seal his third-place ranking in the championship. Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mate Seth Quintero rounded out the top five to conclude his Ultimate rookie season with a sixth. The duo and Al-Rajhi’s Overdrive Hilux helped lift Toyota to their third consecutive manufacturers’ title over Prodrive.

Besides Chicherit, nine other competitors in the Ultimate class retired. Aliyyah Koloc, who made her return to action after recovering from surgery in July, rolled into a ditch in Stage #3; Chicherit nearly crashed into the same hole but managed to jump over it after accelerating at full speed.

With the Rallye du Maroc doubling as the W2RC’s season finale and a dress rehearsal for the 2025 Dakar Rally, many teams placed emphasis on the latter like Al-Attiyah’s Dacia colleagues and X-raid. Pau Navarro finished thirteenth in his début for Past-Racing, while 2023 W2RC Quad champion Laisvydas Kancius was twenty-third as the navigator for Gintas Petrus.

Ultimate overall results

Finish	Number	Driver	Co-Driver	Team	Class	Time	Margin
1	200	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Édouard Boulanger	Dacia Sandriders	T1+	14:26:34	Leader
2	219	Sébastien Loeb*	Fabian Lurquin	Dacia Sandriders	T1+	14:31:44	+ 5:10
3	206	Guillaume de Mévius	Mathieu Baumel	X-raid Mini JCW Team	T1+	14:40:19	+ 13:45
4	201	Yazeed Al-Rajhi	Timo Gottschalk	Overdrive Racing	T1+	14:50:04	+ 23:30
5	207	Seth Quintero	Dennis Zenz	Toyota Gazoo Racing	T1+	14:56:05	+ 29:31
6	209	Martin Prokop	Viktor Chytka	ORLEN JIPOCAR Team	T1+	15:13:50	+ 47:16
7	208	Denis Krotov	Konstantin Zhiltsov	Overdrive Racing	T1+	15:21:19	+ 54:45
8	215	Juan Cruz Yacopini	Daniel Oliveras	Overdrive Racing	T1+	15:24:57	+ 58:23
9	210	João Ferreira	Filipe Palmeiro	X-raid Mini JCW Team	T1+	15:30:20	+ 1:03:46
10	202	Lucas Moraes	Armand Monleón	Toyota Gazoo Racing	T1+	15:47:39	+ 1:21:05
11	211	Marcos Baumgart	Kleber Cincea	X Rally Team	T1+	15:50:14	+ 1:23:40
12	222	Isidre Esteve*	José Maria Villalobos	Repsol Toyota Rally Team	T1+	16:11:38	+ 1:45:04
13	218	Pau Navarro	Alejandro López	Past-Racing	T1+	16:44:23	+ 2:17:49
14	224	Hernán Garcés*	Juan Pablo Latrach	Overdrive Racing	T1+	16:46:08	+ 2:19:34
15	229	Eugenio Amos	Paolo Ceci	MD Rallye Sport	T1.2	16:52:54	+ 2:26:20
16	231	Zi Yunliang*	Sha He	YunXiang Racing	T1+	17:04:13	+ 2:37:39
17	246	Nandu Jubany*	Marc Solà	MD Rallye Sport	T1.2	17:21:12	+ 2:54:38
18	232	Benoit Fretin*	Cédric Duple	YDEO Competition	T1.2	17:33:00	+ 3:06:26
19	241	David Gerard*	Pascal Delacour	Nominoe Aventures MD Rallye	T1.2	17:49:18	+ 3:22:44
20	230	Maik Willems*	Marcel Snijders	Bastion Hotels Dakar Team	T1+	18:43:45	+ 4:17:11
21	237	Mike van Eikeren*	Jasper Riezebos	MP Rallysport	T1.2	19:46:38	+ 5:20:04
22	248	Vincent Vroninks*	Dave Berghmans	Red-Lined Motorsport	T1.1	19:58:47	+ 5:32:13
23	233	Gintas Petrus*	Laisvydas Kancius	Petrus Racing Team	T1.2	20:12:01	+ 5:45:27
24	250	Koen Wauters*	Kurt Keysers	Feryn Dakar Sport	T1.1	20:36:57	+ 6:10:23
25	245	Nicolas Delencre*	Jonathan Lurquin	Dunbee	T1.2	20:43:45	+ 6:17:11
26	239	Magdalena Zajac*	Błażej Czekan	Proxcars TME Rally Team	T1.1	21:07:51	+ 6:41:17
27	235	Tomasz Baranowski*	Konrad Dudzinski	Finarto Racing	T1.1	22:15:34	+ 7:49:00
28	240	Benoit Maurice*	Frédéric Ganache	Objectif Dunes	T1.2	22:28:18	+ 8:01:44
29	242	Frédéric Chesneau*	Lionel Romanin	Skybox Rally-Raid	T1.2	22:47:02	+ 8:20:28
30	212	Cristina Gutiérrez*	Pablo Moreno	Dacia Sandriders	T1+	35:48:40	+ 21:22:06
DNF	205	Guerlain Chicherit	Alexandre Winocq	X-raid Mini JCW Team	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	221	Martin Kaczmarski*	Xavier Panseri	Overdrive Racing	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	223	Aliyyah Koloc	Sébastien Delaunay	Buggyra ZM Racing	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	226	Daniel Alonso*	Candido Carrera	Past-Racing	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	227	Rik Van Den Brink*	Hendrik Gerardus Heimans	Serradori Racing Team	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	228	Guoyu Zhang*	Wang Yicheng	YunXiang Racing	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	234	Jean-Luc Ceccaldi	Delphine Delfino	JLC Racing	T1.2	DNF	N/A
DNF	236	Jean-Rémy Bergounhe*	Pascal Larroque	MD Rallye Sport	T1.2	DNF	N/A
DNF	244	Gérard Tramoni*	Didier Belivier	Team 100% SUD OUEST	T1.2	DNF	N/A
DNF	249	Sam Heyvaert*	Krzysztof Zolty	Red-Lined Motorsport	T1.1	DNF	N/A
DSQ	214	Mathieu Serradori	Loïc Minaudier	Serradori Racing Team	T1+	DSQ	N/A

* – Not competing for World Rally-Raid Championship points

Ultimate stage winners

Stage	Driver	Time
Prologue	Guerlain Chicherit	17:18
Stage #1	Nasser Al-Attiyah	2:10:09
Stage #2	Lucas Moraes	3:04:57
Stage #3	Sébastien Loeb*	3:17:57
Stage #4	Yazeed Al-Rajhi	3:06:51
Stage #5	Sébastien Loeb*	2:31:22

W2RC standings

Unlike Challenger and SSV, Ultimate does not have its own class-specific trophy and instead has a single championship where drivers from all three points-paying categories are eligible.

For readability, competitors registered for the championship but did not earn points are excluded.

Drivers’ standings

Rank	Driver	Points	Margin
1	Nasser Al-Attiyah	207	Leader
2	Yazeed Al-Rajhi	160	– 47
3	Lucas Moraes	117	– 90
T-4	Carlos Sainz	100	– 107
T-4	Guillaume de Mévius	100	– 107
6	Seth Quintero	81	– 126
7	Guerlain Chicherit	69	– 138
8	Rokas Baciuška	60	– 147
9	Denis Krotov	59	– 148
10	Martin Prokop	51	– 156
11	João Ferreira	44	– 163
12	Cristian Baumgart	34	– 173
13	Austin Jones	33	– 174
14	Mathieu Serradori	32	– 175
15	Nicolás Cavigliasso	28	– 179
16	Juan Cruz Yacopini	25	– 182
17	Sebastián Halpern	24	– 183
T-18	Saood Variawa	22	– 185
T-18	Dania Akeel	22	– 185
20	Marcos Baumgart	17	– 190
21	Yasir Seaidan	16	– 191
22	Mattias Ekström	15	– 192
23	Eryk Goczał	14	– 193
T-24	Stéphane Peterhansel	13	– 194
T-24	Mitch Guthrie	13	– 194
26	Sebastián Guayasamín	11	– 196
27	Marcelo Gastaldi	10	– 197
T-28	Pau Navarro	9	– 198
T-28	Ricardo Ramilo	9	– 198
T-28	Marek Goczał	9	– 198
T-31	Ricardo Porém	8	– 199
T-31	Rebecca Busi	8	– 199
33	Aliyyah Koloc	6	– 201
34	Mário Franco	5	– 202
T-35	Sara Price	4	– 203
T-35	Eugenio Amos	4	– 203
37	Krzysztof Hołowczyc	3	– 204
T-38	Claude Fournier	2	– 205
T-38	Michał Goczał	2	– 205
40	Lionel Baud	1	– 206

Co-drivers’ standings

Rank	Co-Driver	Points	Margin
1	Édouard Boulanger	197	Leader
2	Timo Gottschalk	160	– 37
3	Armand Monleón	117	– 80
4	Dennis Zenz	81	– 116
5	Lucas Cruz	76	– 121
6	Xavier Panseri	65	– 132
7	Alex Winocq	64	– 133
8	Konstantin Zhiltsov	59	– 138
9	Mathieu Baumel	58	– 139
10	Viktor Chytka	51	– 146
11	Filipe Palmeiro	44	– 153
12	Oriol Vidal	43	– 154
13	Álex Haro	38	– 159
14	Loïc Minaudier	32	– 165
15	Valentina Pertegarini	28	– 169
16	Oriol Mena	26	– 171
T-17	Gustavo Gugelmin	25	– 172
T-17	Daniel Oliveiras	25	– 172
19	Bernardo Graue	24	– 173
20	Sébastien Delaunay	23	– 174
T-21	François Cazalet	22	– 175
T-21	Stéphane Duplé	22	– 175
23	Kleber Kincea	17	– 180
24	Alberto Andreotti	16	– 181
25	Emil Bergkvist	15	– 182
26	Kellon Walch	13	– 184
T-27	Michaël Metge	11	– 186
T-27	Fernando Acosta	11	– 186
29	Carlos Sachs	10	– 187
T-30	Andreas Schulz	9	– 188
T-30	Fausto Mota	9	– 188
T-30	Maciej Marton	9	– 188
T-33	Luís Marques	8	– 189
T-33	Sergio Lafuente	8	– 189
T-35	Adrien Metge	5	– 192
T-35	João Serôdio	5	– 192
T-37	Paolo Ceci	4	– 193
T-37	Jeremy Gray	4	– 193
39	Łukasz Kurzeja	3	– 194
T-40	Serge Gounon	2	– 195
T-40	Diego Ortega	2	– 195
42	Lucie Baud	1	– 196

Manufacturers’ standings

Rank	Manufacturer	Points	Margin
1	Toyota	227	Leader
2	Prodrive	190	– 37
3	Mini	137	– 90
4	Audi	76	– 151