The Blue Oval announced that it would be making its debut at the 2025 Dakar Rally in the all-new Ford Raptor T1+ racer some time ago, an event that’s widely known as being one of the toughest off-road races on the planet. To help the automaker make this effort a strong one, it enlisted four-time Dakar winner Carlos Sainz Sr., along with Nani Roma, Mitch Guthrie Jr., Kellon Walch, and Mattias Ekström to drive the brand new machine. Unfortunately, things didn’t go quite as well as Ford had hoped at first, as Sainz Sr. wound up retiring after an accident damaged his racer’s safety cage. Regardless, Ford Performance still managed to secure a stage win at the 2025 Dakar Rally.
A stage win in the 2025 @dakar Rally! @NaniRoma and Alex Haro have raced the @Ford Raptor T1+ to a win through the first huge dune stage of the world’s toughest rally. 💪 pic.twitter.com/OirTTMeaPG
— Ford Performance (@FordPerformance) January 15, 2025
The duo of Nani Roma and Alex Haro managed to take that stage win at the 2025 Dakar Rally in their Ford Raptor T1+ racer, Ford Performance announced, which occurred during the first rather large dune stage of the event, it seems. It’s a nice way to cap off the rough off-road event after Sainz Sr. flipped his Dakar Rally racer on its roof at one point, though the team was able to get it back upright and continue on with the race – after they removed a considerable chunk of the vehicle’s bodywork.
However, that damage was more than cosmetic, as Ford Performance wound up announcing that his 2025 Dakar Rally ended a bit prematurely due to additional damage discovered on the vehicle’s safety cage. Ford noted that not only is this a potential safety issue for the drivers, but also, it goes against FIA regulations, so ending Sainz Sr.’s Dakar efforts early was clearly the right move.
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