Loeb, Sainz, Al-Attiyah: A Dakar-worthy entry list for the Rally of Morocco

Au Rally of Morocco 2024 (October 6-11), it will be the track of stars! The final of the World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) will be an opportunity to observe a real dress rehearsal before the Dakar 2025, which is scheduled to start on January 3 in Saudi Arabia.

The list of entrants released by the ODC organization includes 126 FIA vehicles! Among them, we will be carefully discovering the Dacia Sandrider, which will make their competition debut with three choice crews: Sébastien Loeb-Fabian Lurquin, Nasser Al-Attiyah-Édouard Boulanger and Cristina Gutiérrez-Pablo Moreno.

The last round for the crown! 💥 It all comes down to this in Morocco! 🇲🇦
🔜 Round 5
(I.e. @rallyedumaroc
🗓️ October 05 – 11 # W2RC #FIA #FIM #RallyOfMorocco pic.twitter.com/451wdICOA4

- World Rally-Raid Championship @ 🏍 (@ OfficialW2RC) September 18, 2024

At Ford, the winner of the Dakar 2024 Carlos Sainz will make his first rally raid with Malcolm Wilson's team, M-SportThe Spaniard will drive a new 4x4, the Raptor, presented at Goodwood in July.

Toyota will trust its young W2RC wolves, the Brazilian Lucas Moraes, and the American Seth Quintero. Winner of the Rally of Morocco in 2023, the Saudi Yazeed Al-Rajhi continues to trust Overdrive and its boss Jean-Marc Fortin.

A few days after his surprise transfer to X-Raid, Guillaume de Mévius (2nd in the 2024 Dakar) and his new co-driver Mathieu Baumel will be in the cockpit of the new Mini JCW Rally 3.0i. Adventurer Guerlain Chicherit also returns to the German team with the same 4x4, still navigated by Alex Winocq.

Finally, the independent crew made up of Frenchmen Mathieu Serradori and Loïc Minaudier will compete with their turbo-powered Century CR7-T.

ALSO READ > Sébastien Loeb on the Dacia project: “ I was immediately interested."

39 Challengers are entered. The leading players of the W2RC Rokas Baciuska (Can-Am Factory) and Nicolas Cavigliasso (Taurus Factory) in the lead. They will cross swords one last time with Mitch Guthrie (Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team), announced in the official Ford team in Ultimate from the next Dakar. The three Goczals will be back! The Poles Eryk, Michal and Marek have not reappeared since the Dakar on the W2RC circuit. The Can-Am South Racing, Taurus, GRally Team OT3, X-raid Yamaha, an Apache and other lightweight prototypes will animate the always contested category of the Challenger.

36 SSVs are on the entry list. The W2RC leaders will be joined by Americans Hunter Miller and Andrew Short (Can-Am Factory), former competitors of the Rallye du Maroc such as Christian Lavieille (BRP), Erik Van Loon (South Racing) or Helder Rodrigues (Old Friends Rally) but also by a newcomer in the category. Manuel Andujar, winner of the quad world cup at home in Argentina one round before the end of the season will make his debut in SSV within the South Racing Can-Am team.

David Castera, director of the Rally of Morocco: “ With as many cars as motorcycles this year, it's an extraordinary line-up that will be presented in Marrakech. It makes me happy when the competitors are there, it means that what we offer them corresponds to their expectations. Beyond the numbers increasing each year, it is a recognition of all the work we have done over the past six years, a source of pride. I believe I have put a lot of heart, time and investment into it, and today it is a real response from the entire caravan. Our commitment is not over since heavy rains have recently fallen on Morocco. But we are going to do what we usually do: find solutions. Every time it has been complicated, we have been able to carry out the race. Faced with Covid, we confined ourselves to bivouacs, following the earthquake last year, we moved the race. The floods will inevitably impact the race, but the teams that are already on the ground will spend two weeks correcting, adjusting, so that the sport can take place as well as possible.