2023 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge: Non-W2RC racers join the fight

While fifty-five entrants for the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge compete for the World Rally-Raid Championship, there are plenty of others just there to fight for the race win.

Twenty-one of the non-championship entrants are competing in FIA classes while thirty-three are on bikes or quads.

Some previously entered the W2RC season opener in the Dakar Rally, most notably the T1 of Henk Lategan whose Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mate Nasser Al-Attiyah won the overall.

GRallyTeam‘s owner Guillaume de Mevius will not race at Abu Dhabi, but his team will still be present with a pair of T3 entries for Lionel Baud and Yungang Zi. Baud competed at Dakar in T1 but will trade his Overdrive Hilux T1+ for an Overdrive OT3, while Zi’s entry is fielded in conjunction with the Chinese team BAIC ORV.

Anja van Loon is competing in T3 like she did at Dakar, but this time will get to race against her husabnd Erik van Loon, who ran Dakar in T1 but will switch to T3 for Abu Dhabi. Both van Loons will be part of South Racing, though Erik is eligible for the W2RC.

Also racing for South is Tim Marklund, a snowmobile racer from Sweden who finished second in the 2022/23 SXS Nordic championship. 2015 ADDC T2 winner Mansour Al-Helei will celebrate his birthday on the first day of the rally with South; his father Yahya Al-Helei is competing in a Nissan Pickup T1. The elder Al-Helei has run every edition of the ADDC since its inception in 1991.

Mohammed Al-Balooshi highlights the thirty bikes as the current FIM Baja World Cup points leader after winning the opener in Saudi Arabia. Others are newcomers to the world championship like German amateur rider Justin Gerlach.

FIA classes

T1

T3

T4

FIM classes

Rally2

Quad