Nani Roma appeared at the finish line in Shubaytah, in the heart of the Rub al Khali desert, visibly moved. The 52-year-old Catalan driver, the only Spaniard to have won the Dakar Rally on motorcycles (2004) and cars (2014), captured his first stage victory since the 2015 edition and the first victory for Ford in the toughest rally on the planet . For him it was the reward for a couple of very complicated years on a personal level. In 2022 he was surprised by bladder cancer which, after chemotherapy and the removal and replacement of the organ, he was able to successfully overcome. He said then that it was the hardest and most unexpected blow of his life, until in May 2024 he received an even more devastating call: his 16-year-old son Marc had suffered a motocross accident and could not move his legs.
“Winning makes you forget about the bad moments, and you realize reality, why what we do is worth it. “I am very happy for the team, for Àlex (Haro, his co-driver), after a very tough rally for us from the beginning,” Roma commented, his voice breaking, as soon as he got out of the vehicle. “The energy we spend to prepare for a race is very high, and when you come from a complicated personal situation it is even higher. I come from a very hard year, and I have never worked so hard to get to the race well. On the third day we were left out when we had been managing everything very well, but suddenly ‘boom’ and you are left out. “That’s sport,” he added before losing his voice.
In this edition, his mantra, despite the numerous blows suffered in the race, has always been the same. “Problems that have a solution are not problems,” he has repeated day after day. “In life we have little to complain about,” he noted when a mechanical problem left him out of the fight for the general classification in the 48-hour stage. As much as the 17,000 kilometers of tests accumulated with the Raptor T1+ hurt, the hours in the gym to polish a physique always in need after the cancer bill, the most complicated thing was to find the motivation to continue in the race and endure another week and a half away from home, where his son continues to recover from the spinal cord injury he suffered.
The Catalan reference, with all this additional luggage inside the vehicle, took 2h06m34s to complete the first round of endless dunes in a place as remote as it is majestic, with an area larger than the Iberian Peninsula. He had not won in the event since he competed with Mini on the other side of the world, during a stage between Iquique and Calama, in Chile, a decade ago. This Wednesday is the 14th victory for Roma on four wheels, the 31st adding their motorcycle triumphs.
The 123 kilometers between mountains of sand were the appetizer of the penultimate and decisive day of the 2025 edition, which on four wheels arrives with the race very open and a new turnaround in the general classification. South African Henk Lategan regained control of the race in the tenth stage and will have to manage a difference of two and a half minutes over the Saudi Yazeed Al Rajhi. Somewhat far from their Toyota teammates, Mattias Ekstrom (Ford) and Nasser Al-Attiyah (Dacia) will look for a miracle for their respective brands in an eleventh special of 284 kilometers in the middle of nowhere.
In the motorcycle category, Daniel Sanders (KTM) once again reinforced his lead and gained another two minutes on the Spanish contender Tosha Schareina (Honda). “Now it’s about surviving and getting through tomorrow,” ‘Chucky’ pointed out. The Australian is looking forward to his first ‘Touareg’ and is more than 16 minutes ahead of the Valencian, who has been racing since the fifth stage with a broken left collarbone. “Cutting that time by 300 kilometers is very difficult, but anything is possible,” said the great asset of the Japanese brand.
