Julien Dalbec did not get what he hoped for when the Amaury Sport Organisation emailed him in July saying he needed more desert rally raid experience if he wished to run the 2024 Dakar Rally. Three months later, he was easily able to change their minds upon completing the Rallye du Maroc.
Making his World Rally-Raid Championship début, Dalbec finished twenty-sixth overall in the Rally2 category and just missed the top ten among Road to Dakar entrants. The Road to Dakar is a programme that rewards riders who have never raced the Dakar Rally with free registration if they win the class at any of the four W2RC events or other participating rounds.
Dalbec competed on a KTM 450 Rally for Nomade Racing. He recorded three consecutive finishes of twenty-fourth across the first three stages, which he improved upon in Stage #4 with a twenty-first. The fifth and final leg was marred by an hour and fifteen minutes of penalties for missing a waypoint, leaving his final time at 22:37:12. If not for the penalty, his 21:20:12 would have been good for twelfth overall and third in the Road to Dakar.
Nevertheless, the effort more than impressed the ASO into reversing their ruling. Various classmates were also rejected during the initial rider selection process in July but had those rulings overturned in Morocco including Bruno Leblanc and Gioele Meoni.
A motocross rider from France, Dalbec finished thirteenth among bikes at the unrelated Morocco Desert Challenge in April.
His first Dakar Rally will begin on 5 January 2024.
