Tosha Schareina lays down the gauntlet with victory on the Rallye Du Maroc prologue
With the buzz and excitement descending on Marrakesh for the 25th edition of the Rallye Du Maroc, the final round of the 2024 World Rally-Raid Championship, the rally proper has got underway with today’s prologue.
Riders set off from the bivouac on the 33km road section out of Morocco’s fourth largest city to the start of the day’s timed loop where 25km against the clock was waiting for them on fast, rocky terrain.
Tosha Schareina could be mooted as the prologue king as since taking the top spot in last year’s prologue, he has claimed the win at every World Rally-Raid Championship round he has competed in since. Today was going to be no different for the Spaniard as he made light work of the opener to clock 16 mins 54 secs, the only rider to finish in under 17 minutes.
Ricky Brabec is one of three riders in the title chase and finished the prologue in fourth, 21 seconds down from Tosha, but most importantly just three seconds behind current championship leader and arch rival, Ross Branch.
Pablo Quintanilla, who was first on the stage for the Monster Energy Honda Team, won this rally back in 2021 so with a fifth place finish today he will get to choose his starting position for tomorrow’s stage by virtue of being in the top 10.
Adrien Van Beveren is also in with a shout of the 2024 riders’ championship, but he’ll have hoped for a better start to the rally as a navigation error with the new digital roadbook gave the Frenchmen some issues today as he crossed the line in eighth.
Once returning to the Marrakesh bivouac, everything was packed up before a long 372km road transfer on the Tizi n’Tichka pass across the imposing Atlas Mountains towards Zagora. Familiar to the riders as it featured in last year’s rally, the secluded town in the Draa River Valley will be the bivouac for the teams for the next two stages as Monday’s action will see a total 500km on their Honda CRF450 RALLY motorcycles.
The first big test of this 2024 showdown is 273km of special stage as the route heads in a South Westerly direction out of Zagora.
Ruben Faria
The race has started with a nice 25km prologue, which is one of the biggest prologues we’ve had in the World Rally-Raid Championship. All the riders did a good job, although Adrien is not happy because he lost a little bit of time on one note as he was not 100% sure that he had the waypoint. Tosha, again did a great prologue, Ricky’s in a really good position to start the rally and also Pablo did a very good prologue. The bikes and team are all OK, so now we move to Zagora, which is a long trip, where we will be ready for tomorrow’s stage one.
Pablo Quintanilla 7
Well it was a good prologue, always at the beginning you’re a little bit more nervous than a normal stage, but it was OK, I felt good and was in a good rhythm. Maybe I was focused too much on the road book thinking about if there might be a tricky note or some complicated waypoint, but in the end I felt good with the pace, so I’m happy with the day.
Ricky Brabec 9
The prologue was fairly decent and similar to the marbles we tested on a couple of days ago. I went through the prologue with zero issues other than being a little bit scared and cutting the throttle on top of some rises, but I think we got away with it, so I’m happy to start the rally and I’m looking forward to getting to stage one and battling it out with the boys.
Adrien Van Beveren 42
It’s not the best prologue I’ve done so far, I felt a bit tense and had to make some turnarounds with the small waypoints but it’s OK, we we will focus on tomorrow and stage one.
Tosha Schareina 68
Today the prologue was pretty gnarly, it was sketchy in some parts of the track as there were narrow, rocky sections. But it was really good for us with the first place and we’ll have to get a good position in the starting order for tomorrow and be ready for the race.
Rally GP Results - Prologue
| Pos. | Rider | Num | Nation | Team | Constructor | Time/Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Schareina Tosha | 68 | SPA | Monster Energy Honda HRC | Honda | 00:16:54 |
| 2 | Evan Branch Ross | 16 | BWA | Hero Motorsports Team Rally | Hero | +0:18 |
| 3 | Sanders Daniel | AUS | KTM Factory Racing Team | KTM | +0:18 | |
| 4 | Brabec Ricky | 9 | USA | Monster Energy Honda HRC | Honda | +0:21 |
| 5 | Quintanilla Pablo | 7 | CHI | Monster Energy Honda HRC | Honda | +0:31 |
| 6 | Benavides Luciano | 1 | ARG | KTM Factory Racing Team | KTM | +0:48 |
| 7 | Bühler Sebastian | POR | Hero Motorsports Team Rally | Hero | +0:48 | |
| 8 | Van Beveren Adrien | 42 | FRA | Monster Energy Honda HRC | Honda | +0:48 |
| 9 | Santolino Lorenzo | 15 | SPA | Sherco TVS Rally Factory | Sherco | +1:10 |
| 10 | Gonçalves Rui | 19 | POR | Sherco TVS Rally Factory | Sherco | +1:53 |
| 11 | Maio Antonio | 30 | POR | Franco Sport Yamaha Racing Team | Yamaha | +2:05 |
| 12 | Cornejo Florimo José Ignacio | 11 | CHI | Hero Motorsports Team Rally | Hero | +2:10 |
Location Information
Morocco has always been a land of rally raid. The story began in 1982 with the arrival of Paris-Agadir, the first rally raid to run in Morocco. The following year, the rally took the name of ‘Atlas Rally’ and became the flagship rally to the Rally Raids calendar. The Atlas… read more.
| Winner 2023 | Toby Price (KTM) |
| Winner 2022 | Skyler Howes (Husqvarna) |
| Winner 2021 | Pablo Quintanilla (Honda) |
| Winner 2020 | Cancelled due the COVID-19 Pandemic |
| Winner 2019 | Toby Price (KTM) |
| Winner 2018 | Toby Price (KTM) |
| Winner 2017 | Matthias Walkner (KTM) |
| Winner 2016 | Toby Price (KTM) |
| Winner 2015 | Sam Sunderland (KTM) |
| Winner 2014 | Marc Coma (KTM) |
| Winner 2013 | Paulo Gonçalves (Honda) |
| Winner 2012 | Cyril Despres (KTM) |
Agadir, Morocco - View in Google Maps
