GRallyTeam will have a pair of former Dakar Rally FIM champions on the roster for the Rallye du Maroc as Alexandre Giroud and Charan Moore make their FIA débuts.
Giroud will be the driver of a GRally OT3 with fellow Quad alumnus Jérémy Jacomelli as his co-driver. Moore will be the navigator of another OT3 piloted by Puck Klaassen. The team will also field two more entries for Rui Carneiro and Ola Fløene as well as Lionel and Lucie Baud.
Moore teased his vehicle switch on Tuesday when he wrote he “won’t be going back to Dakar on a bike.” He won the 2023 Dakar Rally in the Original by Motul (Malle Moto) subcategory before moving into the broader Rally2 class for 2024, where he finished ninth overall. Despite his successes on two wheels, he has been frank about the expenses of continuing a bike career, especially as a longtime privateer.
His driver Klaassen was a motocross rider before a leg injury prompted her to change to driving. She ran the Dakar Classic in January before going on to race in the World Rally-Raid Championship in a Taurus T3 Max.
On the quad side, Giroud is a two-time Dakar winner with back-to-back victories in 2022 and 2023. He also claimed the category’s inaugural World Rally-Raid Championship following his first Dakar victory, and won the 2023 Rallye du Maroc in the class. The Frenchman nearly achieved a three-peat in January but came up eight minutes short.
Transitioning to an FIA class was inevitable for Giroud after the Amaury Sport Organisation announced in April that the Quads have been dropped for the 2025 Dakar onwards. Many of his fellow riders have also since made the switch including Manuel Andújar, who beat Giroud for the 2024 Dakar win before winning the W2RC, 2023 World Champion Laisvydas Kancius, Mikołaj Krysik, Pablo Copetti, Rodolfo Guillioli, and Juraj Varga. While Jacomelli has never raced the Dakar, he is an FIM World Bajas Cup veteran on a quad. Although Quads will still be at the Rallye du Maroc, most of the aforementioned will instead be there in a car or side-by-side.
The Rallye du Maroc, the final round of the 2024 W2RC, will run on 6–11 October. GRallyTeam finished ninth and twenty-first in class at the 2023 race with Kees Koolen and Luis Portela Morais, respectively.
