The Toyota Gazoo Racing W2RC crew of Seth Quintero and Andrew Short took a giant step towards winning the 2026 FIA World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) for the first time with victory at the Ola Energy Rally of Morocco in Zagora on Saturday.
The Toyota Hilux GR crew had already won Argentina’s Desafío Ruta 40 this season and moved up from third to lead their respective Drivers’ and Navigators’ Championships with one round to run in November.
The Americans finished 4min 23sec ahead of Toyota Gazoo Racing SA’s João Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro and a further 19 seconds in front of their third-placed team-mates Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings after 102 cars started the five-day desert classic. The success marked the seventh for the Japanese manufacturer on the event and a first since 2023 with Hiluxes taking a clean sweep of the podium places for the second time.
Quintero, 24, now has an unofficial 13-point championship lead over Sébastien Loeb and a 19-point cushion over Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah. He said: “I ended up getting the win here and it feels amazing against the talent that I am up against. It feels good to come away with the win and the championship lead and there’s a good buffer in there. One more race and there is everything to fight for. We were inside the top five almost every day and scoring points. Guys were playing the flip-flop, going front to back and that wasn’t my game. We didn’t get passed by any cars, passed a bunch of cars and just did my whole thing.”
Runner-up Ferreira added: “We finished second. We went full attack completely on the final stage. It paid off. We took second from Henk by 19 seconds. I am very happy. It is a good result for the team after a tough week. It’s not the position I wanted but it’s a gift to the team at SVR for all their super hard work.”
Ford Racing also delivered a strong performance in Morocco. Joan ‘Nani Roma’ and Alex Haro led a trio of Ford Raptors to the finish in fourth overall. Team-mates Mitch Guthrie and Kellon Walch overhauled Carlos Sainz and Dani Oliveras to claim fifth.
Mathieu Serradori and Loic Minaudier had a consistent showing in the Century Racing Factory Team CR7 to take seventh. The Energylandia Rally Team’s Eryk Goczal and Szymon Gospodarczyk brought their Raptor home in eighth and Cristina Gutiérrez was the first of the non-registered drivers to finish, the Spaniard taking ninth in her new Santana 400.
Czech veteran Martin Prokop rounded off the top 10 with Victor Chytka in his Orlen Jipocar Raptor, the former WRC star narrowly edging Eryk Goczal’s father Marek into 11th. Goczal senior’s consolation was the W2RC Master driver title.
It was a disappointing event for the Dacia Sandriders Team and saw its advantage in the Manufacturers’ Championship pegged back by a strong Toyota showing. Loeb and his navigator Edouard Boulanger came into the event leading team-mates Al-Attiyah and Fabian Lurquin by three points.
But Loeb suffered mechanical issues on day one and then stopped within 700 metres of the finish of the final stage with front wheel and suspension damage. Al-Attiyah endured two substantial time losses with technical problems and team-mate Lucas Moraes crashed heavily. The three Dacias eventually reached the finish in 17th, 53rd and 59th overall after Loeb was towed to the finish by a truck competitor.
Dennis Zenz retained his position alongside Yazeed Al-Rajhi, as Timo Gottschalk continued to recover from injury, and that meant Pablo Moreno teamed up with Moraes in the third Dacia.
After an opportunity to test the cars for the last time at a Shakedown stage, action got underway with the opening selective section of 271.72km between Agadir and the bivouac camp in Zagora.
Moraes thought he had earned his third stage win with Dacia until Ferriera came home to claim the early bragging rights with a three-second win after initially stopping to help an Arabic biker. Serradori and the Ford duo of Guthrie and Mattias Ekström rounding off the top five. Loeb stopped after 202km with mechanical problems and incurred massive time penalties but title rivals, Quintero and Al-Attiyah, were classified in seventh and eighth behind Saood Variawa.
Loeb said: “We had some electrical failure. The car stopped in the dunes and there was not much we could do. The 48-volt system was at zero. We tried to use the 12-volt battery to provide some electricity to the other system so we could restart the car, but it didn’t last long. We tried to get out of the dunes, but eventually the power was completely gone. We had no power steering, no engine cooling, nothing.”
Eryk Goczal lost time stuck in the sand, Sainz was hit with a five-minute speeding penalty and Guillaume De Mévius and Lategan sustained costly punctures. Carnage lower down the field also saw massive time penalties for Jourdan Serderidis (accident) and Mark Mustermann.
Stage two looped through the desert around Zagora for 299.93km. Lategan fended off a fierce challenge from Al-Attiyah to earn the stage win by just 41 seconds from a resurgent Eryk Goczal. Al-Attiyah ground to a halt nine kilometres from the finish, dropped 45 minutes being towed by Loeb and that opened the door for Sainz, Moraes and Ekström to complete the top five places.
Al-Attiyah said: “I think something broke between the clutch and the gearbox and the car completely stopped. We couldn’t move.”
Moraes became the new leader and took a 28-second advantage over Lategan into the night halt. Sainz, Ekström and Serradori held third, fourth and fifth. Al-Rajhi suffered suspension issues and retired from the stage after running inside the top 10 through 45km.
Serderidis was unable to continue and Alvarez suffered electrical issues for the second day running and a rear suspension breakage. Toyota’s Kevin Benavides had a high-speed roll after 197km and retired, while Guy Botterill also rolled out of contention.
Stage three was the longest and most demanding of the event at 359.78km. Ekström was unable to start after a leak was discovered on his Raptor, Variawa crashed after 150km and Al-Attiyah lost the virtual stage lead when he stopped again at the 213km point for 35 minutes.
Loeb picked up five valuable points for claiming his 25th career W2RC stage win and second place lifted Sainz ahead of Quintero and into the outright lead when Moraes dramatically crashed out of contention 11km from the finish. It was the first time the Spaniard had led a W2RC round since winning the 2024 Dakar with Audi. Roma and Ferreira moved up to third and fourth overall with Lategan slipping back to fifth.
The penultimate Zagora loop ran for 318.88km. Al-Rajhi stopped with transmission issues after 122km, as Ekström held off a fierce challenge from Lategan to claim the stage win. Quintero was able to snatch the outright lead and headed into the final day with a 2min 45sec advantage over team-mate Lategan. Ferreira was 5min 58sec behind in third after Roma picked up a one-minute penalty. Four different drivers had won a stage and there had been as many different outright leaders.
The final Zagora loop tested crews for 257.20km. De Mévius missed out on a potential seventh overall for X-Raid with late technical issues and gearbox woes cost Dania Akeel a possible top 13 finish. Eryk Goczal claimed the stage win from Ferreira, with the latter doing enough to displace Lategan and finish second behind Quintero. Loeb stopped near the finish after fighting for the win, as five different drivers won a stage.
Pinto and Oliveira dominate Challenger class
The Odyssey Academy by BBR Taurus T3 Max crew of Alexandre Pinto and Bernardo Oliveira were the class of the Challenger field. They won four stages and moved into the championship lead after an accident sidelined Puck Klaassen and Augusto Sanz in their KTM X-Bow Lab Team G Rally Team G-ECKO.
Portugal’s Rui Carneiro and Fausto Mota finished second in their Taurus after Paul Spierings lost time in stage four. Qatar’s Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari debuted the new South Racing Maverick R Challenger and was the third of the registered W2RC drivers at the finish.
Pinto cruised to victory on the opening stage from Varela, Carneiro, Manuel Andujar and Spierings. Klaassen’s push for victory was thwarted when she crashed heavily after 159km. Daniel Schröder also incurred hefty time penalties and retired.
Klaassen was unable to continue after the damage from the previous day, as Spierings topped the Challenger times and trimmed runner-up Pinto’s overall lead to 15min 45sec. Carneiro held third overall. Pinto topped the times again on SS3 and extended his lead over Spierings to 19min 12sec and over Carneiro to 37min 28sec.
Pinto dominated the Challenger field on the fourth stage and increased his advantage to 44min 41sec over Carneiro after Spierings stopped midway through the test. The Portuguese confirmed the win by beating Al-Kuwari by just under four minutes on the last day.
South Racing’s Walkner and Mena confirm SSV win
The battle for supremacy in the SSV category developed into a two-horse race between the Can-Am Factory Team’s Jeremias Gonzalez Ferioli and Gonzalo Rinaldi and the South Racing Can-Am Team’s Matthias Walkner and Oriol Mena.
Just nine seconds separated the duo before the final stage in the Argentinian’s favour but he lost half an hour in the desert and Walkner – the 2017 motorcycle winner - was able to romp to victory by a winning margin of 1hr 33min 11sec over the non-registered French duo of Andréa Deldossi and Jérémy Tricaud.
In the absence of João Monteiro and Nuno Morais, new leaders Ferioli and Rinaldi remain in strong contention to challenge for the title on the final round. They slipped to third (second registered) but were well clear of Lithuania’s Mindaugas Sidabras and Ernestas Česokas, the third of the registered crews.
Walkner got the better of Ferioli to draw first blood in the SSVs on the opening stage with a 7min 13sec win. Sidabras came home in fourth but there were substantial delays and hefty penalties for Eugenio Amos and Juan Piferrer (accident), both drivers unable to start stage two as a result of their problems.
Ferioli got the better of Walkner on stage two and trimmed the Austrian’s lead to 6min 33sec. He also beat the Austrian on the third stage and snatched a 5min 26sec advantage. Walkner edged his rival for glory on the fourth one but the pair were separated by just one second in the Austrian’s favour after 15 hours of racing. Walkner was then handed a 10-second penalty and Ferioli led by nine seconds.
Peterhansel leads Defender Rally Team 1-3-4 in Stock category
The Defender Rally Team was again the class of the field in the Stock section with Dakar legend Stéphane Peterhansel teaming up with Michael Metge to claim victory.
The French duo finished 56min 29sec in front of the stage five-winning Yasir Seaidan and his French navigator Jean-Michel Polato in their Toyota Land Cruiser GR Sport entered by Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body.
Stage two delays proved expensive for Rokas Baciuška and Oriol Vidal in the second Defender and they finished third, ahead of early pace-setters, Sara Price and Sean Berriman, who were penalised for an engine change and didn’t tackle the final stage. Baciuška continues to leads the title race from Peterhansel.
Seaidan’s Toyota finished the opening stage sandwiched between winner Price and Peterhansel. Baciuška was 22min 07sec behind in fourth.
Peterhansel got the better of Price on the second one and trimmed the American’s lead to 13min 57sec. Seaidan maintained third but Baciuška stopped on the final section with a broken suspension wishbone.
Victory on stage three enabled Peterhansel to move into a comfortable lead of 1hr 13min 04sec after early pace-setter Price dropped over three hours to her team-mate and was forced to replace a damaged engine overnight after an impact damaged the Defender’s radiator. Seaidan climbed to second with Price slipping to third.
Baciuška won the fourth test and climbed to third when Price was handed a 20-hour time penalty for the engine change. Peterhansel retained his lead, despite a 30-minute penalty for a rear differential change.
The FIA World Rally-Raid Championship concludes with the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge on November 22nd-27th.
2026 Ola Energy Rally of Morocco – Top ten final result:
1. Seth Quintero (USA)/Andrew Short (USA) Toyota Hilux GR 16hr 34min 05sec
2. Joāo Ferreira (POR)/Filipe Palmeiro (POR) Toyota Hilux IMT Evo 16hr 38min 28sec
3. Henk Lategan (RSA)/Brett Cummings (RSA) Toyota Hilux GR 16hr 38min 47sec
4. Joan Roma (ESP)/Alex Haro (ESP) Ford Raptor 16hr 41min 06sec
5. Mitch Guthrie (USA)/Kellon Walch (USA) Ford Raptor 16hr 42min 28sec
6. Carlos Sainz (ESP)/Dani Oliveras (ESP) Ford Raptor 16hr 43min 30sec
7. Mathieu Serradori (FRA)/Loic Minaudier (FRA) Century Racing CR7 16hr 47min 58sec
8. Eryk Goczal (POL)/Szymon Gospodarczyk (POL) Ford Raptor 16hr 52min 58sec
9. Cristina Gutiérrez (ESP)/Marc Solà (ESP) Santana 400 T1+ 17hr 12min 19sec*
10. Martin Prokop (CZE)/Viktor Chytka (CZE) Ford Raptor 17hr 18min 28sec
