Stage 5 brought down the curtain on the 34th Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge on Thursday. The 364 km stage (including 167 km against the clock) took the field to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, the terminus of a journey spanning six days and 1,917 kilometres. · In the car category, Nasser Al Attiyah landed Dacia their second triumph in three races, with the Toyota Gazoo Racing pair Lucas Moraes and Seth Quintero filling the rest of the podium. The Qatari also bumped Yazeed Al Rajhi (Overdrive Racing) from the championship lead. In the Challenger class, Dania Akeel (BBR Motorsport) made history as the first woman to win a W2RC round. Enrico Gaspari (MMP) picked up his first victory in SSV. Daniel Sanders (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) followed up his Dakar win a month ago with another triumph and padded his lead in the FIM championship. Monster Energy Honda HRC's Ricky Brabec and Tosha Schareina flanked him on the podium. The Rally 2 class saw Michael Docherty clinch his first victory in a championship round, but his stablemate Tobias Ebster seized the lead in the series. The Chinese CFMoto Thunder Racing outfit scored a double in the quad race, courtesy of Antanas Kanopkinas and Gaëtan Martinez. The convoy will soon head to South Africa for the series debut of the third event on the 2025 calendar. Get ready to discover the South African Safary Rally between 18 and 24 May!
FIA: Nasser Al Attiyah back on the throne
Vanquished at the Dakar (fourth), Nasser Al Attiyah vowed to take his revenge in Abu Dhabi, just as he had done last season. It was no idle threat from the Qatari, who sealed both the final stage win and his fifth career triumph at the event. He took victory ahead of the Toyotas of Lucas Moraes (+2′28″) and Seth Quintero (+11′56″), with both drivers matching their best W2RC result in Ultimate. Multiple entrants fell at the last hurdle, including Eryk Goczał (Overdrive Racing) and Sébastien Loeb (The Dacia Sandriders), who had to withdraw, giving the Pole's teammate Juan Cruz Yacopini a clear run to bring his Hilux home in fourth (+29′53″). Ford M-Sport broke into the top 5 with Mitch Guthrie (+31′02″), while João Ferreira secured sixth for X-raid Mini JCW (+46′40″). Al Attiyah's victory propels him to the top of the championship standings, ahead of Yazeed Al Rajhi, who was hampered by mechanicals issues today. The Qatari now holds a 23-point lead over the Saudi, while Moraes climbed to third, 33 points adrift. Toyota Gazoo Racing continues to set the pace in the manufacturers' standings, its Hiluxes proving dominant once again. The Japanese marque sits 70 points clear of The Dacia Sandriders, with Ford M-Sport a further 19 points back.
CHALLENGER: Dania Akeel the first lady
Never outside the W2RC top 5 in a special, Dania Akeel played the consistency game and it paid dividends. Securing the first victory of her career, the Saudi driver made history, embracing her destiny as the first woman ever to win a championship round. Pau Navarro (+3′28″) and Yasir Seaidan (+21′52″) completed an all-BBR Motorsport podium. Eduard Pons (fifth) made sure that the Nasser Racing Team finished inside the top 5. The second woman in the field, Puck Klaassen, took eighth for the G Rally Team, finishing behind Nicolás Cavigliasso. The Argentinian, who suffered an early crash, had to settle for seventh but salvaged enough stage points to retain his championship lead. Navarro now sits second, 11 points behind, while Seaidan (third) and Akeel (fourth) have closed to within 28 and 31 points, respectively.
SSVs: Enrico Gaspari opens his account
Italy is celebrating its first-ever SSV victory in the series, with Enrico Gaspari taking the win ahead of his compatriot Michele Cinotto for Xtreme Plus Polaris and Alexandre Pinto of the Old Friends Rally Team. The Frenchman Claude Fournier, the 73-year-old grandfather of the W2RC, finished just outside the podium. Even so, the Lusitanian Pinto retained the championship lead, with Gaspari closing to within 11 points and Cinotto lifting his Polaris to third in the standings, 65 points adrift.
FIM: Sander-land
Going into the finale with a 7′23″ cushion over Ricky Brabec, the race leader Daniel Sanders managed to stem the tide. The Australian limited his losses to the American to 1′36″ and romped home with 5′47″ to spare. The stage winner, Tosha Schareina (+6′04″), outgunned KTM's Luciano Benavides (+8′01″) and Honda's Adrien Van Beveren (+5′47″) in the fight for the bottom step of the podium. "Chucky" took out a leaf of 2022 Sam Sunderland to pull off the Dakar-ADDC double. The British rider went on to take the world championship title at the end of the season. The man from Three Bridges, Victoria, is also looking every bit the part, with his W2RC lead growing to 17 points over Schareina in second place and 26 over Brabec in third. Ignacio Cornejo scored points for Hero in sixth place, unlike Ross Branch, who went home empty-handed due to clutch issues. The world champion from Botswana will be eager to perform at the next round of the series, the South African Safari Rally, which will basically take place in his backyard. KTM tops the manufacturers' leader board by 6 points over Honda and 72 over Hero.
RALLY 2: Glory at last for Docherty
Michael Docherty had finished third at the 2023 Dakar and second at the 2024 Rallye du Maroc, but the top step of the podium still eluded him in the W2RC. He sorted that out in Abu Dhabi, where the South African became the first Rally 2 rider to complete a clean sweep of a championship round. The title holder, Konrad Dąbrowski (Duust Rally Team), was the best of the rest at 34′26″. The 2023 winner, Tobias Ebster (SRG Motorsports) rounded out the podium at 51′25″' after prevailing over the rookie Ruy Barbosa (Xraids Experience), fourth at 53′46″. Ebster, the runner-up at the Dakar, soared to the championship lead with 4 points in hand over Docherty. The recent Dakar winner, Edgar Canet (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing), slipped to third place, with 8 points to his name, after crashing and hurting his elbow in stage 1.
QUADS: CFMoto double with Kanopkinas and Martinez
Rally raids are all about pacing man and machine alike. Competitors need to push as hard as possible, but without veering over the edge, and no-one played that game better this week than the CFMoto Thunder Racing duo. Antanas Kanopkinas took the title ahead of his brother in arms, Gaëtan Martinez, netting the Chinese marque its first-ever double. The stage 5 winner, Marek Łój, placed his Poland National Team Yamaha third, followed by Marcin Wilkołek (SQGP Racing Team). This is the first round of the 2025 W2RC season in this class, so the championship ranking is a carbon copy of the ADDC standings.
