Four-time Dakar Rally winner Carlos Sainz will sit out the second round of the 2025 World Rally-Raid Championship in Abu Dhabi as M-Sport Ford carries out its first planned crew rotation of its maiden rally raid campaign.
M-Sport has four contracted crews, all of whom contested January’s Dakar, and will alternate its lineups between two of its Ford Raptors for the remainder of the W2RC season.
Dakar podium finisher Mattias Ekström and co-driver Emil Bergkvist will take the start of the 34th edition of the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, as will Mitch Guthrie Jr alongside Kellon Walch after their fifth-place finish last month.
Sainz and team-mate Nani Roma – who won the event back in 2013 – have spearheaded the development of the Raptor since its launch last year but endured a difficult Dakar; Sainz was forced out of the event after a heavy crash while Roma suffered an engine failure in the first week.
The Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge kicks off on Saturday with a Prologue around the rally headquarters of Al Ain before the five-day event begins in earnest on Sunday. For the first time in the rally’s history, a marathon stage will feature on the itinerary, mirroring the format used in the Dakar Rally whereby crews will have to spend a night at a remote bivouac without outside mechanical assistance.
Over 600 miles of special stage will be covered and may prove to be a turning point in the wider W2RC title race with several frontrunners from the Dakar registered for the full season on the entry list.
Al Rajhi and Al-Attiyah headline bumper Ultimate field
Al Rajhi leads W2RC standings after victory on Dakar in Toyota Hilux
On paper, the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge appears to be a straight fight between two crews: Dakar Rally winner Yazeed Al Rajhi (Overdrive Racing Toyota Hilux) and triple W2RC champion Nasser Al-Attiyah (Dacia Sandrider).
Al Rajhi won the ADDC in 2023 and is an expert in the desert landscape, as is Al-Attiyah who has won the event four times before.
Like their Ford rivals, the Dacia Sandriders team will also be scaling back to two cars – having entered three for the Dakar. Al-Attiyah’s team-mate Sébastien Loeb will be aiming to bounce back from a disappointing Dakar in the second Sandrider.
“I’m really happy to be back in the car after a frustrating Dakar, which ended far too early for us after we showed a lot of potential early on,” said Loeb.
“The Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge is always a special rally with a lot of big dunes, it’s nearly only sand and dunes so it’s very different from most of the other rounds of the championship.
Loeb saw little of dunes in disappointing Dakar
“I enjoy driving in the dunes a lot. As I didn’t do many kilometers in the dunes on the Dakar, I hope to do much more in Abu Dhabi and get a better result.”
X-raid is also fielding two of its Mini JCW Rally machines, for Guillaume de Mévius and João Ferreira. De Mévius will be joined by former World Rally Championship co-driver Xavier Panseri, replacing Mathieu Baumel who remains in hospital following an horrific road traffic accident last month which resulted in the four-time Dakar winner losing his right leg.
Ferreira is coming off the back of a successful start to the Portuguese Off-Road Championship, winning the Baja Monte Alentejanos.
Toyota en masse as Goczałs make T1+ debut
With 11 cars in the 22-car Ultimate field, Toyota continues to be the brand of choice for many crews. Four official W2RC registered entries will take the start with Guy Botterill and Dennis Murphy receiving a late call up in place of Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings, following a strong Dakar showing.
Guy Botterill steps into Toyota Gazoo Racing lineup in place of Henk Lategan
They will be backed up by the full-season crews of Seth Quintero/Dennis Zenz and Lucas Moraes/Armand Monleon, while young prospect Saood Variawa, co-driven by François Cazalet, is also in the mix.
On the privateer front, Overdrive Racing boasts the other seven Hilux entries, with Al Rajhi also registered for W2RC manufacturer points.
Abu Dhabi also marks the eagerly anticipated T1+ debut for last year’s Challenger W2RC champion Eryk Goczał. The Polish sensation, who was disqualified from last year’s Dakar for running an illegal clutch and skipped this year’s edition, teased a move to the main class and conducted a week-long test in Morocco alongside his father, Marek, who will drive a second Hilux also under the Energylandia Racing name.
Goczałs join T1+ class in Energylandia Racing Hiluxes
“We had a fantastic test with the Toyota in Morocco,” said Goczał Jr. “We were driving for seven days. The last 100km were amazing. I found some settings I am happy with, and we learned a lot. The higher the speed, the more the fun.”
The state of play in the W2RC so far
Courtesy of his Dakar victory – and handy stage points – Al Rajhi and Gottschalk lead the W2RC standings with 70 points, 15 clear of Lategan and Cummings. Al-Attiyah and Boulanger are within striking distance in third, with 48 points, four ahead of Ekström and Bergkvist.
With Lategan not competing in Abu Dhabi, both Al-Attiyah and Ekström know that a strong result is needed to make inroads into Al Rajhi’s healthy points lead at this early stage in the season.
TGR’s Quintero and Moraes also have ground to make up, in sixth and 10th respectively after up-and-down Dakars. Dacia’s Loeb is the biggest name not to have scored on the Dakar.
