Summarize

South Africa’s Red-Lined Motorsport is gearing up to support six international customer entries in the 2025 Dakar starting in Saudi Arabia Friday 3 January. With crews ranging from rookies to seasoned campaigners, the team is once again prepared for every eventuality, no matter how deep into the desert or Empty Quarter the brutal 14-day 5000-kilometre race takes them.

“Dakar is one of the cornerstones of our Red-Lined Motorsport operation and as such the 2025 event will once again be a big challenge for us,” team principal Terence Marsh points out. “Our ethos is to present rally raid racers, no matter if they are semi-professional teams looking for better results, or businessmen racers who want to attempt to finish the world’s toughest motorsport event. Our six Red-Lined race car line up gives us good representation of our spectrum of customers and we are as ready as we can be for a challenge of this magnitude!”

Seychellois lady racer Aliyyah Koloc was the star of the Red-Lined Dakar effort alongside French notes man Sebastien Delaunay in 2024. They will be back looking for an even more competitive run as they chase a top twenty finish for 2025 in their Buggyra ZM Racing sponsored Red-Lined REVO+. Rookies last year, Belgian-Dutch crew Stefan Carmans and notes man Arjan van Tiel will also be back in their CSA Racing sponsored Red-Lined REVO+ after realising their boyhood dreams of finishing the Dakar, which they managed to achieve first time out last year.

HanWei Motorsport is back with their HWM prepared REVO+ entry out of China. Wei Han and Li Ma were well on their way to a top 20 placing last year when Ma unfortunately suffered a severe back injury from a hard landing in the dunes during the tough chrono stage. The pair will be targeting a clean run and a push towards the top ten this year if all goes according to plan. 

Two Dutch crews will also be targeting improved results in their new Red-Lined REVO+ entries for 2025. Dave and Tessa Klaassen, who on their debut in 2023 finished an impressive second in the rookie class, third in the T1 class and 36th overall in their Daklapack sponsored Red-Lined VK56. The Klaassen’s will now be taking the step to the T1+ Ultimate class in their familiar DaklaPack Rallysport colours for 2025. The other Dutch pairing of Ronald Van Loon and Erik Lemmen similarly make the step up in their newly acquired Oase Motorsport sponsored Red-Lined REVO+, this after competing in the 2023 edition in a Red-Lined VK50 T1.

The German crew which includes three-time Dakar entrant Markus Walcher will be driving a Walcher Racing sponsored Red-Lined VK56 in the T1 class with the experienced Dakar biker Frank Stephan Preuss alongside him in the hot seat for the latest Dakar edition. A Red-Lined VK50 won the T1 class last time out so Walcher and Preuss will be aiming to repeat that honourable achievement this year.

 

“2024 was seen as one of the toughest Dakar’s in recent years and organisers are promising more of the same for 2025,” Terence Marsh concluded. “But that doesn’t surprise us as the organizers have a reputation of putting together tougher and more challenging events each year, and as such we will be on the ground and ready in Saudi Arabia come January to support our six customer teams as they make a superhuman effort to get to the finish of what is regarded as the toughest motorsport event on the planet.”