Maria Luis Gameiro to make Dakar Rally debut in 2025

After competing in the FIA World and European Baja Cups and national championships close to home, Maria Luís Gameiro will enter the Dakar Rally for the first time in 2025. She will race in the Challenger category under the Team Motivo JCB banner, driving a Yamaha YXZ1000R Turbo Prototype from X-raid Team with José Marques as navigator.

Gameiro usually races a Mini JCW Rally Plus from X-raid in the Ultimate class, primarily in the Baja Cups and in the Portuguese and Spanish Cross-Country Rally Championships. Her 2024 itinerary primarily based around races on the Iberian Peninsula such as the European Cup’s Baja TT Dehesa Extremadura and World Cup’s Baja Aragón, finishing third in class in the former and eighth at the latter.

When the World Rally-Raid Championship came to her native Portugal for the first time in April for the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid, Gameiro scored a tenth-place finish in Ultimate with her Mini. In early October, she débuted in Challenger with a Yamaha but retired due to engine problems; the start came shortly after being the first woman to race the Baja Morocco, where she placed sixteenth in her maiden desert rally.

“We’ve been working hard to be sure we’ll be at Dakar 2025,” said Gameiro. “Being able to confirm it is a big responsibility, and also a source of enormous joy and pride. Everything happened very quickly in the last two years. I feel that the dedication of the team is now bearing its best fruits. There is still a lot to be outlined and we have many details to sort out, but the most important thing is confirmed: we are heading to Saudi Arabia to compete in Dakar 2025.”

Gameiro will be the first Portuguese woman to race the Dakar since Elisabete Jacinto, who made multiple starts on a bike and eventually a car between 1998 and 2009. Coincidentally, Marques was her co-driver at the Africa Eco Race, which follows the Dakar’s original route that Jacinto ran on and which they won in a truck in 2019.

Marques has run the Dakar six times as a navigator. He made his début in 2006 with Helder Oliveira before entering the 2009 edition with Partine Pereira. In 2021, 2023, and 2024, he called the shots for Gintas Petrus, finishing twenty-eighth in Ultimate at the latest race.

“Representing Portugal at the Dakar Rally is a great source of pride for me,” Gameiro continued. “No adjective I can use will do justice to this race’s legend. I’m about to fulfill a dream, and above all, I hope I’m up to the challenge. It’s no secret that we’ve been working hard, and I know I’m better prepared than I was two months ago.

“However, everything will be new for me in Saudi Arabia, and I don’t expect it to be easy. We are working to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible.”

The 2025 Dakar Rally will take place on 3–17 January.

Article written in collaboration with Rally Raid Spirit