Albert Llovera will not race Fesh Fesh‘s Ford Cargo EVO I truck in the 2025 Dakar Rally, though the team is open to a reunion in the future.
“Unfortunately, Albert Llovera will not be joining us for the 2025 DAKAR Rally,” reads a team statement on Thursday. “However, we believe that our collaboration will continue, and we look forward to meeting again at the DAKAR Rally or other races in 2026. Therefore, we are looking for a new crew for the special FORD CARGO EVO I.”
Llovera joined Fesh Fesh in 2022, but his IVECO retired after seven stages. The team introduced the Ford Cargo, a 4×4 truck which was developed in partnership with Ford Spain, for the 2023 edition. However, mechanical gremlins plagued him again, beginning with a broken rear axle differential on the opening stage before being knocked out altogether two legs later.
His niece Margot Llobera and Marc Torres rode with him for the latest edition in January. After three legs, Llovera opted to sit out Stage #4 due to a serious headache that he attributed to potholes and bumps; to add insult to injury for Fesh Fesh, their other truck of Vaidotas Paškevičius retired that same day due to radiator damage. Llovera subsequently rejoined ther rally as part of the Dakar Experience and successfully reached the finish seventeenth in the Truck class. His best daily outing was a tenth in Stage #10.
Llovera, a former alpine skiier who took part in the 1984 Winter Olympics, is one of a handful of disabled racers as he uses a wheelchair due to a severe spinal injury. His truck has adaptive controls and pedals to help him pilot it. He has raced the Dakar since 2007, originally starting in a car before switching to a truck in 2016; his best finish was fifteenth in 2020 in an IVECO for Team de Rooy.
Fesh Fesh also has a Tatra Jamal driven by Paškevičius and a new Tatra FF7 that Tomáš Vrátný débuted at last weekend’s Baja Poland, where he finished third among Polish Cross-Country Rally Championship trucks.