Searles brothers shift focus to 2026 Dakar Rally, need to “get one more rally done”

Carl Searles and his brother Craig Searles will have to wait another year before racing the Dakar Rally together. On Saturday, they were informed by the Amaury Sport Organisation that their applications for the 2025 race were rejected due to insufficient desert rally experience. Told they needed just one more start before the organisers were willing to greenlight them, they will now focus on the 2026 rally.

“Unfortunately, they’ve not given us an entry for this year, but the phone call was really positive,” began Craig Searles. “They were happy with our story, happy with our result in the Rally de Maroc. They said our pace was good, so they congratulated us on that one. Unfortunately, we haven’t got in this time, but they said if we could get one more rally done, then our entry is pretty much there for 2026.”

The brothers made their World Rally-Raid Championship débuts at the Rallye du Maroc last October with the goal of qualifying for the 2025 Dakar. Carl finished fifty-third overall in Rally2 while Craig was fifty-eighth, and they were respectively twenty-ninth and thirty-third among Road to Dakar entrants. The Road to Dakar grants free registration to the best performing rider with no prior Dakar experience.

Carl’s race began when the thumb toggle switch for his roadbook malfunctioned sixty kilometres before the end of the opening stage (an issue that prompted an ASO comment to reassure riders that the system was functional) while Craig crashed, forcing them to work until 2 AM the next morning to repair their bikes. The two rode together at first before eventually focusing on their own races for the second half onwards, which paid off for Carl when he scored a best stage finish of fortieth in Stage #3. Craig’s Sentinel alarm button glitched during Stage #4, but he managed to notch his highest placement of fifty-seventh.

Morocco marked their first rally raid. The two are primarily motocross riders and instructors at the BMW Off Road Skills school in Wales, while also working at the family-run Liquitech Ltd water treatment company.

Their Dakar project, dubbed “Searles2Dakar“, is heavily backed by motorcycle insurance firm Bennetts, the title sponsor of the British Superbike Championship. The brothers received the verdict from the ASO while at Brands Hatch for the British Superbike weekend.

“Nothing really changes other than we just roll on to 2026 now,” commented Carl. “We just got to get another World round done in rally. We just need to work out financially and geographically which one’s best for us. We’ve got a few options already on the cards.

“Not the news we wanted to hear, but we’ve taken the positives away from it. We’ve already spoken to a lot of the sponsors, including Bennetts, and everyone’s been really supportive. We just keep this ball rolling and get it done for 2026.”

The 2024 Rallye du Maroc is scheduled for 6–11 October.