Carlos Santaolalla, Jan Rosa win 2024 RallyClassics Africa

In January, Carlos Santaolalla and Jan Rosa Viñas won the Dakar Classic in their Toyota Land Cruiser HDJ80. Eight months later, they continued their winning ways in the deserts of Morocco when they crushed the RallyClassics Africa.

The duo recorded the lowest average score to beat fellow Land Cruiser driver and Dakar Classic competitor Asier Duarte by nearly 200 points. Santaolalla won the first stage before Carles Bracons in his own Land Cruiser topped Stage #2, then the former claimed the last leg to finish the job.

Defending winner Antonio Rius broke up the Land Cruiser party with a Stage #3 victory in his SEAT Toledo Marathon, though he finished seventeenth. Nevertheless, the Spanish marque joined Santaolalla and Duarte on the overall podium courtesy of Jose Enrique Ruiz Perez.

The SEAT entries were prepared by SEAT Históricos, the manufacturer’s historic car collection and restoration programme. Isidre López Badenas, the head of the division, finished twenty-first in a SEAT Ateca.

Rafael Lesmes and his pink Mercedes-Benz 1844 AK, nicknamed Elefante Rosa (“Pink Elephant”), overcome an early navigation error to place fourth. He was the highest finishing truck, just as he was at Dakar.

“This Africa Classic is like a mini Dakar, but much more comfortable,” Lesmes described. “We faced terrains that are no less challenging than those in Saudi Arabia, with spectacular dunes that allowed us to train for about 100 kilometres, which is crucial for Dakar 2025.

“If someone had told me before coming here that we’d be among the top five or six, I would have signed up for that. This rally has been essential training for Dakar 2025, where we hope to repeat last year’s success.”

Dirk Van Rompuy, who was fourth at Dakar, rounded out the top ten in his Land Cruiser. Meanwhile, former Paris–Dakar Rally racer Jorge Pérez Companc rebounded from his 2024 Classic exit with a sixteenth.

2021 and 2022 Classic competitor Amy Lerner, who spoke with The Checkered Flag two years ago, scored an eighth in her Can-Am Maverick. Side-by-sides and vehicles built after 2005 were permitted in an otherwise historic rally as part of the Open class, which was won by the Polaris RZR of Isaac Ciurana De Arcos. López’s SEAT, along with other Atecas, was also an Open entry.

Much of the course was impacted by the historic downpours that plagued Morocco, resulting in severe, deadly flooding. The weather prompted the Baja Morocco, which began a week after RallyClassics Africa, to modify their own itinerary.

Overall results