Barely four weeks after the completion of the Dakar Rally, the World Rally-Raid Championship returned to action for round two of the 2025 season, the 34th running of the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge.
Three-time world champion Nasser Al-Attiyah came out on top to claim his fourth victory on the event, in doing so making it two wins from three outings for the Dacia Sandrider. It was a different story for teammate Sébastien Loeb, who crashed out for the second consecutive event, denting his and Fabian Lurquin’s W2RC title aspirations.
Retirement for Dakar winner Yazeed Al Rajhi means that Al-Attiyah and Edouard Boulanger now lead the standings, with the W2RC taking a deserved break ahead of the inaugural South Africa Safari Rally at the end of May.
Here’s what we learned from the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge:
Al-Attiyah still W2RC reference
Fourth place on the Dakar Rally last month was not a bad result for Al-Attiyah and Boulanger, but the five-time winner was left unhappy at missing out on the podium positions. Keen to make amends for that relative disappointment, the Qatari set the fastest time on the Prologue, which gave him free choice of starting position for the first of five stages.
It’s clear that Al-Attiyah is the reference point in rally raid and that any crew hoping to beat him will need to be close to perfect with Al-Attiyah slightly less than perfect. That challenge is steeper than some of the 100-metre plus dunes that dominate the Emirati deserts and one that makes the title race all that much harder.
Al-Attiyah may have missed out on Dakar silverware – but W2RC's most successful driver is proving that even after his Dacia switch, he's still the absolute benchmark in rally-raid
After topping the Prologue, Al-Attiyah won two of the five stages and beat Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Lucas Moraes by just under two-and-a-half minutes. But while the margin of victory suggests a degree of comfort for the Dacia pairing, Moraes entered the final test just 41-seconds adrift in the overall classification, proving that the Hilux again is a match for the most successful driver in W2RC history.
Loeb crashes out again
Just when will things start to go right for Sébastien Loeb in rally raid? The nine-time World Rally champion suffered an early bath on the Dakar in January and encountered a similar fate in Abu Dhabi.
Aiming to put the Dakar frustration behind them, Loeb and Lurquin were fast out of the blocks on the opening stage, placing second before moving into the lead of the rally with their first stage win with Dacia on the second day. But, on the first half of the Marathon Stage on day three – the first time a Marathon Stage has figured in a W2RC round outside of the Dakar Rally – Loeb lost time at the bottom of a dune before rolling end-over-end after getting blinded in his own dust.
“It all started when we missed a waypoint by less than 10 meters, which it looked like all our competitors had done in view of the lines we saw,” Loeb said.
Abu Dhabi was the second W2RC event in a row where Loeb has been forced to abandon the race with rollcage damage following a rollover incident
“We did a 360-degree turn for validation, but we were caught in our dust, missed a mini dune and rolled off the front.”
Significant damage meant Loeb had to wait for the assistance truck and only reached the bivouac just before midnight. As was the case on the Dakar, the rollcage was too badly damaged to continue and Loeb was out.
Signs of Toyota fragility as Al Rajhi suffers engine issues
Toyota once more demonstrated its all-round performance with three of its cars finishing inside the top four, but there will surely be some concerns over reliability following two separate issues for erstwhile W2RC points leader Al Rajhi. The Saudi driver, at the wheel of his Overdrive Racing Hilux, lost more than eight minutes on the opening stage with an unspecified engine issue, effectively taking him out of the victory hunt from the off.
Al Rajhi and navigator Timo Gottschalk never fully recovered from their early setback and things got even worse on the final test. A further engine problem curtailed their event and prevented them from even making the finish. A solitary point was all Al Rajhi could gain from the rally, meaning he now trails Al-Attiyah by 21 points in the standings.
More miles for Ford despite Ekström exit
M-Sport Ford came into the second round of the season with development more than results on their mind. After a double top five finish on the Dakar, Abu Dhabi proved to be a challenging event as the Raptor T1+ continues to find its feet versus the frontrunners. The pace wasn’t quite there on the first two stages with both of its designated drivers, Mattias Ekström and Mitch Guthrie Jr fighting on the edge of the top 10, but Guthrie and Kellon Walch rallied well to finish fifth for the second successive event.
M-Sport's new Raptor T1+ hasn't been a match for the class-leading Toyotas and Dacias so far this season
“We’re really happy to make it to the finish, a lot of learning for the team and myself,” Guthrie Jr said. “We’re improving every day and it was just nice to continue to chip away at those overall positions; I’m really proud of the team, zero issues with the car all rally, just like on the Dakar.”
Ekström’s rally was curtailed after stage two as the Swede was forced to withdraw due to illness.
“The car was going well, but I was feeling sick from the beginning, and I only got worse,” said Ekström. “I had to stop to throw up, so this was not my greatest day in racing. Now I just need a bit of rest and hopefully I’ll be in top shape for the two Marathon stages.”
Unfortunately for Ekström, he was forced to pull out ahead of stage three, leaving Guthrie Jr as the sole Raptor in the event.
Rising star Goczał shines on T1+ debut
One of the key omissions from last month’s Dakar in the Challenger class was 2024 champion Eryk Goczał. The 20-year-old Polish driver, who became the youngest winner of the Dakar last year, skipped the season opener in favor of an extensive testing regime in an Overdrive Racing prepared Toyota Hilux T1+.
Goczał is already looking like a leading talent of the next generation of rally-raid drivers
Goczał’s rise up the rally raid ranks has been hugely impressive and making his T1+ Ultimate debut with such relative inexperience has certainly turned heads. Paired with navigator Oriol Mena, Goczał delivered on the promise by setting competitive stage times early on, before picking up his first scratch time on stage four to move towards the cusp of the podium places overall.
However, just like Al Rajhi, Goczał – whose father Marek was also in an Energylandia Racing branded Hilux but who retired on stage three – ground to an agonizing halt with a mechanical issue on the final stage.
Nevertheless, Goczał has showcased his supreme outright pace and is one of the latest up-and-coming young talents in rally raid to keep an eye on for the future.
“After my dad’s accident, he had to return to Poland with my mom,” Goczał said post-stage. “We decided that we should stay here and continue fighting. This win is for my dad. He taught me everything I know and can do today.”
