Jeffrey Otten and his Gaia Motorsports will not be back in Saudi Arabi for a fourth Dakar Rally in 2025.
“Unfortunately, our Gaia Motorsports team will not be racing in Dakar 2025,” wrote Otten on Sunday. “We will soon announce our plans for 2025.”
Otten was a former bike racer who switched to driving after breaking his vertebrae in a rally crash in 2018. After dabbling in various amateur rallies like the Fenix Rally and Rallye Breslau, he made his Dakar début in 2022, where he finished twenty-seventh in what is now the SSV category. The following year, he suffered a broken wrist on the penultimate stage but managed to improve his overall finish to twenty-second.
He moved up to the Challenger class for the 2024 edition, racing a Can-Am Maverick prepared by Jorge Blanco‘s JB Racing. Olaf Harmsen, who also used to race rally bikes including two Dakars, took over as co-driver. Otten finished twenty-third in class with a best outing of sixteenth in Stage #6. Gaia also fielded a Can-Am for Edwin Opstelten, a Dakar newcomer competing under the Thunder Camels banner, who retired after halfway due to a spinal injury sustained in a crash.
After Dakar, Gaia Motorsports mostly focused on events in their native Netherlands such as the Peelrandrit in Gemert-Bakel in March with Otten and Marco Bouman. Bouman, a close friend of Otten, served as his navigator before transitioning to a crew role for the 2024 Dakar after Harmsen’s arrival.
The 2025 Dakar Rally will take place on 3–17 January.
