Yacopini and Oliveras head a 46-car entry into Dubai Festival City start
The Dubai International Baja will decide the outcome of the outstanding honours in the 2025 FIA World and Middle East Baja Cups on November 20th-23rd.
Based at Dubai Festival City, the ninth edition of the event has attracted a field of 46 cars with 12 registered in the Ultimate category, nine in Challenger, 19 in SSV and six in the increasingly popular Stock class for series-production cross-country machines.
Fifteen crews will be competing for FIA World Baja Cup points and nine will be challenging for points in the FIA Middle East Baja Cup.
The Baja is being held under the patronage of H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum. Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defence and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai.
Yacopini and Oliveras on the brink of FIA World Baja Cup title
A fourth victory from five starts with wins in Jordan, Italy, Spain and Qatar have given Juan Cruz Yacopini and Dani Oliveras 403 points in their respective Drivers’ and Navigators’ Championships before the final round in Dubai. The SVR Toyota Hilux crew are still not mathematically assured of the titles, although they have already confirmed Ultimate category honours.
The South Racing Can-Am Team’s Mitchel van den Brink and his navigator Bart van Heun secured the SSV title in Qatar recently and took maximum points in Greece and Portugal. They trail the Argentine and the Spaniard by 62 points and still have a mathematical chance of snatching the overall Drivers’ and Navigators’ championships.
Czech veteran Miroslav Zapletal and his Slovakian navigator Marek Sykora have already posted the permitted six scores from eight in their Ford F-150 Evo and will be hoping that they will not be deprived of a podium finish to the season by the Challenger category-winning Taurus crew of Sergei Remennik and Aleksei Ignatov.
The Nasser Racing Team driver trails Zapletal by 53 points and can still put another score on the board. Remennik and Ignatov confirmed overall victory in the Challenger category after the Qatar International Baja.
Behind the triumphant van den Brink, Briton Paul Severn (Polaris) and Omani Hamed Al-Wahaibi (Can-Am) will be joined by Maha Al-Hameli (Can-Am) and Eugenio Amos (Can-Am) to battle it out for the remaining two podium places in the final SSV standings. Quaddy Racing’s Amerigo Ventura (Yamaha) and his navigator Erika Mingozzi are non-starters with six scores already on the board, although they have a 31-point cushion over Severn and his navigator Max Delfino in the current standings.
The event also sees the return of Fernando Alvarez after another spell on the sidelines following back issues. The Argentina-based Spaniard returns to the South Racing fold. Saudi driver Abdullah Al-Haydan and Emirati Mansour Al-Helai are also registered for the FIA World Baja Cup in a pair of Can-Ams.
Majed Al-Thunayyan and his navigator Fahad Al-Sufyani hold a 30-point advantage over Fernando Barreiros and José Sa Pirés in the duel for Stock category honours. They will decide the destiny of the championship in the UAE.
Non-registered drivers keen to make an impression on the season’s finale include Abu Dhabi’s former MERC champion and WRC star Sheikh Khalid Al-Qassimi in a Toyota Hilux and the Toyota Gazoo Racing W2RC duo of Seth Quintero and Toby Price. The latter pair are using the event as a pre-Dakar test with the latest versions of the Hilux and their respective navigators, Andrew Short and Brent Bauman.
There is also a solitary diesel-engined X-raid Mini JCW Rally for Portugal’s Maria Gameiro and an Overdrive Racing Toyota in the hands of Ronan Chabot. Czech Martin Prokop has also entered the event for further testing and development with his Ford Raptor that finished second in Qatar recently.
Grandstand finale in prospect for FIA Middle East Baja Cup
Four drivers still have a mathematical chance of winning the Drivers’ Championship in the FIA Middle East Baja Cup. Maximum points for third overall in the recent Qatar International Baja have put Ultimate category champion Dania Akeel in pole position to take the title.
The Toyota Hilux driver heads to the UAE with a nine-point cushion over the QMMF Team’s Khalifa Saleh Al-Attiyah (Taurus). Hamza Bakhashab is third in the points’ standings in his Can-Am Maverick R, albeit 39 points behind the leading Saudi, and Qatar’s Abdullah Al-Rabban has already won the Stock category and has a slim chance, despite trailing the leader by 60 points in his Nissan Patrol.
An accident on the final day in Qatar has put paid to Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari’s chances, although a top performance by the Qatari could take points off his rivals at the season’s finale. The accident on his home event also enabled Khalifa Saleh Al-Attiyah to confirm the regional Challenger title after he picked up points for second place. His Argentine navigator Bruno Jacomy is in pole position to win the Challenger Navigators’ Championship.
Bakhashab’s navigator Marcin Pasek holds a 27-point cushion over Emirati Ali Ajami in the overall Navigators’ Championship. Stéphane Duplé and Jacomy are also within ear shot of the top step of the podium. Both Sébastien Delaunay and Ali Hassan Obaid can still mathematically catch Duplé in the chase to become the leading Ultimate class navigator.
The QMMF Team has already won the Teams’ title, Bakhashab has been crowned as the leading Junior driver and also won the SSV Drivers’ title, while Al-Rabban has secured the Master driver title with Ali Ajami. Pasek is the regional SSV champion navigator.
The event also sees the international FIA debut of the new Defender Dakar D7x-R that will enter the FIA World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) from the Dakar rally onwards. Built with support from Land Rover to challenge Toyota’s long-term dominance of the showroom category in cross-country motorsport, the pair of Defenders will be in the hands of Dakar legend Stéphane Peterhansel and the talented Lithuanian driver Rokas Baciuška.
They carried out development and testing with the new car in Morocco recently and will team up with navigators Michael Metge and Oriol Vidal for the Defender’s international debut in the world spotlight.
Subject to final checks by sweep crews, the provisional timetable for the Dubai International Baja will see crews tackling a Prologue of 5.64km in the Hatta region of the Hajar mountains on Friday, November 21st to determine the starting order for the first of the desert stages.
That first stage starts at Al-Faqa’a and passes through the rolling dunes of the Al-Qudra desert for 195.24km on Saturday, November 22nd.
The second stage on Sunday, November 23rd runs for 195.63km before the return to Dubai Festival City for the podium ceremony and prize giving,
