Borja Pérez Casimiro hopes to make his Dakar Rally début in 2024, and plans on taking that step by entering the Rallye du Maroc in October. The latter is typically used as a dress rehearsal for Dakar Rally competitors and is the final leg of the Road to Dakar programme, which grants free Dakar admission to the best riders with no prior experience in that rally.
Pérez comes from a background in motocross, while also having competed in enduro and cross-country rally. In 2022, he was one of six riders from Melilla competing in the Campeonato de España de Cross Country (Spanish Cross Country Championship); he finished fifth in the 2021 edition.
Melilla is a Spanish autonomous city along the border of Morocco, making the Rallye du Maroc a natural stop for Pérez. In April, he ran the Morocco Desert Challenge and finished twenty-fourth overall; in an interview with El Faro de Melilla, he called completing the race “a great surprise” as “only 40% of the participants managed to finish it completely. It was the largest beast of a competition that I have run. It is already a very tough test and the weather took it to the extreme with the consequences that you already know.”
He is also the vice president of the Federación Melillense de Motocicliso, Melilla’s motorcycling federation.
“t will not be easy but with the experience I have gained, I know what points I have to work on to improve,” Pérez continued. “It is an extreme discipline that exhausts your body and mind, and the feeling of finishing each stage is an enormous satisfaction that cannot be described.”
The Rallye du Maroc runs on 13–18 October, while the 2024 Dakar Rally begins on 5 January.