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Dakar 2025 Preview: Hero Motocorp & Harith Noah To Be Joined By 3 More Indians At World's Toughest Rally
The 47th edition of the world's toughest, the Dakar Rally kicks off tomorrow and will see competitors traverse over 7,700km across the sands of Saudi Arabia in 12 days of gruelling racing. This includes over 5,000km of racing against the clock with Carlos Sainz (now with Ford) and Honda's Ricky Brabec will look to defend their hard-earned titles from last year.
Like the previous 4 editions of the Dakar, the 2025 Dakar rally will be contested entirely in Saudi Arabia. While Hero Motocorp will be the only Indian team at the rally, four Indians, including the first one to compete in one of the four-wheeler categories at Dakar, will be gunning for glory at this year's edition of the world's toughest rally raid.
Dakar 2025: The Route
Dakar 2025 sees a change in the route once again compared to the previous edition of the rally. The rally will begin with the 79km long Prologue stage near the town of Bisha, which may not seem like much to the layman but is of great importance to riders and drivers. The top 10 on both two and four wheels are able to choose their starting position for Stage 1, a 499km loop that first heads south before returning to Bisha.
Stage 2 is the fearsome 48Hour Chrono stage first introduced in last year's edition of the Dakar Rally. Competitors will head out north from Bisha on the 5th of January. When the clock hits 5 p.m., competitors will head to the closest rest area for the night where they will have to repair their machines on their own if needed as support staff are not allowed on this specific stage. The next morning at the crack of Dawn, all riders and drivers will complete the rest of the stage which covers a total of 1,058km.
The next two stages will see the competitors head north first from Bisha to Al Henakiyah, a journey of 847km and then another 588km to Alula. The route from Al Heakiyah to Alula and the following day's rally to Hail make up the Marathon section of the Dakar 2025 Rally. This means that on the night of the 8th of January in Alula, riders and drivers will have to make their own repairs to their machines, as like the Chrono stage, assistance crews will not be permitted in the bivouac.
Friday, the 10th of January will be the rest day for the weary competitors at Dakar 2025 ahead of the second week of brutal rallying. Week 2 of Dakar 2025 will kick off with the 6th stage from Hail to Al Duwadimi, an 828km route that sees the rally head south, but now on the eastern side of the Arabian desert. Stage 7 will see competitors race across a 742km route that heads south before looping back to Al Duwadimi.
From Al Duwadimi, competitors on Stage 8 of Dakar 2025 will head to the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh, a further 737km east before they move another 589km (Stage 9) southeast to the town of Haradh. Finally from Haradh, the Dakar 2025 will travel 640km (Stage 10) to Shubaytah, the final stop on the Dakar journey.
Shubaytah, will host the final two stages of the Dakar 2025 rally. Stage 11 will see competitors loop southeast into the Rub' al Khali or the Empty Quarter, one of the most sparsely populated places in the world, and then come back to the town that sits near the border with the UAE, a route that covers 507km in total.
Finally on Friday the 17th of January, all remaining competitors will complete a 131km loop around Shubaytah, a stage that is expected to be mostly processional, unless like last year the race is too close to call.
Dakar Teams and Riders To Watch Out For
Bikes
In the two-wheeler category, Indian manufacturer Hero Motocorp will be competing in the top Rally GP class. Hero will be hoping that 2024 W2RC champion Ross Branch will do one better than his 2nd place finish at last year's Dakar.
Branch will once again be teaming up with Sebastian Buhler at this year's Dakar and the duo will be joined by Juan Ignacio Cornejo Florimo, better known as Nacho, who raced the previous 5 Dakars with Honda. Hero will be taking on the usual suspects from Honda, KTM and other factory racing teams at this year's Dakar.
Harith Noah, the first Indian to take an overall class win at the Dakar, will be returning to defend his Rally 2 crown at this year's race, his sixth run at the world's toughest rally. Noah, who is sponsored by TVS, will once again be astride a Sherco factory team motorcycle.
Noah will be joined at the Dakar by Xraids Experience rider Ashish Roarane on his KTM, who had to leave last year's rally after Stage 1 following a brutal crash. Roarane will once again race in the Rally 2 class at this year's Dakar.
The third and final Indian rider at Dakar will be Indian rally veteran Jatin Jain who has been rallying bikes in India for over 20 years and has won the Raid de Himalaya and the INRC championship.
Cars
Audi's Carlos Sainz returns to defend his crown in a brand new car after claiming the Dakar with the hybrid Audi RS Q E-Tron E2 prototype last year. El Matador will be hoping to take a 5th overall victory at Dakar this year, in Ford's T1 Ultimate prototype, with some help from Mattias Ekstrom, who has also joined the Blue Oval from Audi this year.
However, Sainz, Ekstrom and fellow teammate Nani Roma will have to deal with the other new super team at tDakar 2025, the Dacia Sandriders. The Dacia Sandrider driver lineup includes 5-time Dakar Champ, Nasser Al-Attiyah, 9-time WRC champion Sebastien Loeb and last year's T3 class winner Cristina Gutiérrez.
2025 will also mark the first time that an Indian driver will race at Dakar. Indian rally legend, Sanjay Takale, will be competing in Dakar 2025 in the Dakar Classic class, which features vehicles manufactured before 2005 that run on a different route compared to the regular Dakar in the TSD format. The former APRC Production Cup champion who also competed in a few WRC races, will be driving a Toyota Land Cruiser HZJ78 at Dakar 2025.
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