Guillaume Chollet was hoping to use the Rallye du Maroc to refine his riding before the 2025 Dakar Rally, but that’s off the cards now. On Tuesday, he announced that due to low funding, he will not enter the Moroccan race and will spend the rest of the year focusing on preparing for Dakar.
“I would have preferred a different birthday gift, but unfortunately, with great disappointment and sadness, I am canceling my participation in the Rallye du Maroc due to a lack of budget,” he wrote. “Indeed, I prefer to prioritise the Dakar Rally and not compromise our chances of starting our ninth Dakar.
“The situation is difficult, and I fully understand that. Thank you to my team Xraids Experience for understanding my decision, thank you to my partners for also trying to find solutions, and thank you to the organisers of the Rallye du Maroc for their understanding as well.
“I’m back to fighting to avoid the same disappointment by having to cancel Dakar. For this reason, I’m reaching out to you. With 100 days left before the Dakar starts, all ideas are welcome.
“Worse than defeat… is giving up!!!”
Chollet has been racing the Dakar since 2016 with eight starts under his belt. As a privateer, he has had to make ends meet either on his own or with the help of his sponsors, to a mixed bag of results.
After finishing sixty-fifth in his début and ninetieth the year after, the Frenchman has alternated between reaching the end or retirement. He bowed out of the 2018, 2020, and 2023 races due to a mechanical failure in the first retirement and crashes in the other two. In those he completed, he finished sixty-fifth (2019), 122nd (2022, relegated to the Dakar Experience due to an oil leak), and forty-third (2024).
His 2024 Dakar started on a sour note when a roadbook malfunction in the Prologue resulted in him going off course and incurring fifteen minutes of penalties. Speeding penalties further hampered his overall standing early on, as did a minor illness in Stage #10 and a pair of crashes the next stage when he hit a rock and tried to let a car pass him. Despite this, Chollet successfully reached the end with a best outing of forty-third among Rally2 riders in Stage #9.
The 2025 Dakar Rally will take place on 3–17 January.
