Rally Dakar: 10 out of 12 stage victories and double victory in the overall standings – Reiger Suspension customers dominate the world’s toughest rally raid for the eleventh time

It is and remains the toughest rally raid in the world: the Dakar Rally. In 2025, from the 3rd to the 17th of January, it traversed 7,800 kilometers through the deserts of Saudi Arabia with their scree and gravel plains, dunes, and wadis.

The former Paris-Dakar Rally was a guest on the Arabian Peninsula for the sixth time and it was the first time that a Saudi Arabian driver won the rally in 2025: Yazeed Al Rajhi.

He shared the cockpit in his Toyota GR Hilux Evo (#201) of Team Overdrive, equipped with Reiger dampers, with Timo Gottschalk as co-driver.

In the Toyota GR Hilux Evo (#211) of the official Toyota Gazoo Racing Team, driven by South Africans Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings, who finished in second place after leading for most of the race, our Reiger Suspension shocks delivered exceptional performance. Pretty much as always. In 2025, by the way, a team with Reiger dampers won for the eleventh time.

In addition to the double victory in the overall classification, the Reiger Suspension customers also celebrated fourth, seventh, eighth and ninth places! They also achieved ten out of twelve stage victories and top 5 finishes in the categories “Challenger”, “SSV”, and “Truck”.

A premiere at the Dakar was the start of the Dacia Sandrider. The mission was to arrive. Dacia has succeeded in doing this and more than that. The Dakar veteran and five-time Dakar Rally winner Nasser Al-Attiyah, together with his co-driver Edouard Boulanger, placed the Dacia (#200) in fourth place overall!

A total of three Dacia Sandriders started. While the #219 of Sébastien Loeb and Fabian Lurquin had an irreparable accident, the Dacia (#212) of Pablo Moreno and Cristina Gutierrez finished in 14th place overall.

Seventh place went to Juan Cruz Yacopini and Daniel Oliveras in the Toyota GR Hilux Evo (#216). They are the teammates of the overall winner Yazeed Al Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk.

The Mini of the X-Raid Mini JCW Team with João Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro crossed the finish line in eighth place.

Ninth, also in a Toyota GR Hilux Evo (#204), were Seth Quintero and Dennis Zenz.

Dakar Rally Reiger Suspension shock test

We simulate the tough competitive conditions found in the deserts of Saudi Arabia in advance during the research and development of the Reiger Offroad Rally dampers on our endurance test rig. Here we can drive the entire track profile and put our shocks through their paces, so to speak, so that they survive the ordeal at the Dakar Rally.

Throughout the Dakar Rally, our colleagues were also directly on site with their service truck to support our off-road customers. In this mobile workshop, we can overhaul or even rebuild the Reiger dampers directly in the service area if the worst comes to the worst.

For this purpose, our service truck has four dust-protected, air-conditioned and fully equipped “workshop cabins” for all service work. Thanks to our robust Reiger Suspension dampers, our technological advantage and meticulous preparation, most jobs were just routine maintenance work such as shock oil service. After all, our Reiger Suspension Dakar customers have already celebrated an overall victory and numerous class victories eleven times.

In the canopies, our service technicians cleaned the springs with compressed air or were on duty as contact persons for all the customers. We were also available to one or the other team in an technical emergency – because despite all the competition on the stages; in the end, we are all one big motorsport family.

The top results of our Reiger Suspension customers at a glance:

Overall classification and Ultimate T1+ category Top 10

  • Position 1: Yazeed Al-Rajhi / Timo Gottschalk (Overdrive Racing, #201)
  • Position 2: Henk Lategan / Brett Cummings (Toyota Gazoo Racing, #211)
  • Position 4: Nasser Al-Attiyah / Edouard Boulanger (The Dacia Sandriders, #200)
  • Position 7: Juan Cruz Yacopini / Daniel Oliveras (Overdrive Racing, #216)
  • Position 8: Joao Ferreira / Filipe Palmeiro (X-Raid JCW Team, #240)
  • Position 9: Seth Quintero / Dennis Zenz (Toyota Gazoo Racing, #204)

Stage Top 5’s:

Prolog:

  • Position 1: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #211
  • Position 3: Team The Dacia Sandriders #200
  • Position 4: Team Overdrive Racing #210
  • Position 5: Team X-Raid Mini JCW Team #240

Stage 1:

  • Position 1: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #204
  • Position 2: Team X-Raid Mini JCW Team #202
  • Position 3: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #218
  • Position 4: Team Orlen Jipocar Team #221
  • Position 5: Team The Dacia Sandriders #212

Stage 2:

  • Position 1: Team Overdrive Racing #210
  • Position 2: Team Overdrive Racing #201
  • Position 3: Team Overdrive Racing #216
  • Position 4: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #211
  • Position 5: Team The Dacia Sandriders #200

Stage 3:

  • Position 1: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #218
  • Position 2: Team X-Raid Mini JCW Team #202
  • Position 3: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #204
  • Position 4: Team X-Raid Mini JCW Team #222
  • Position 5: Team X-Raid Mini JCW Team #240

Stage 4:

  • Position 1: Team Overdrive Racing #201
  • Position 2: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #211
  • Position 3: Team Overdrive Racing #209
  • Position 4: Team X-Raid Mini JCW Team #240

Stage 5:

  • Position 1: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #201
  • Position 2: Team The Dacia Sandriders #211
  • Position 4: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #217
  • Position 5: Team Overdrive Racing #209

Stage 6:

  • Position 1: Team X-Raid Mini JCW Team #222
  • Position 2: Team X-Raid Mini JCW Team #240
  • Position 3: Team The Dacia Sandriders #200
  • Position 4: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #205
  • Position 5: Team Overdrive Racing #201

Stage 7:

  • Position 1: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #203
  • Position 4: Team The Dacia Sandriders #200
  • Position 5: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #204

Stage 8:

  • Position 1: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #211
  • Position 2: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #205

Stage 9:

  • Position 1: Team The Dacia Sandriders #200
  • Position 2: Team X-Raid Mini JCW Team #222
  • Position 3: Team Overdrive Racing #201
  • Position 5: Team Overdrive Racing #210

Stage 10:

  • Position 2: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #203
  • Position 4: Team Century Racing Factory Team #214
  • Position 5: Team Can-Am Factory Team #404

Stage 11:

  • Position 2: Team The Dacia Sandriders #200
  • Position 3: Team Overdrive Racing #201
  • Position 5: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #211

Stage 12:

  • Position 1: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #203
  • Position 2: Team The Dacia Sandriders #200
  • Position 3: Team Toyota Gazoo Racing #211
  • Position 5: Team Ps Laser Racing #242

SSV Category Top 5

  • Position 2: Francisco Lopez Contardo / Juan Pablo Latarch (South Racing, #404)
  • Position 3: Alexandre Pinto / Bernardo Oliviera (Old Friends Rally Team, #412)

Challenger Category Top 5:

  • Position 1: Nicolas Cavigliasso / Valentina Pertegarini (BBR, #301)
  • Position 4: Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari / Nasser Al-Kuwari (Nasser Racing, #334)
  • Position 5: Adam Kus / Dmytro Tsyro (Akpol, #349)

Truck Category Top 5

  • Position 3: Ales Loprais / David Kripal / Darek Rodewald (DeRooy, #601)
  • Position 5: Vaidotas Zala / Paulo Fiuza / Max van Grol (DeRooy, #605)

Photo MM Production, Teams

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