The 25th edition of the Rallye du Maroc, from October 4 to 11 will mark the final round of the 2024 World Rally-Raid Championship and the controversial digital roadbooks are compulsory for the first time by the bike categories.

2468 kilometres await competitors of the 2024 Rallye du Maroc, the final round of the World Rally-Raid Championship. The monumental 25th edition of the rally which started in the millennium year will see 271 vehicles depart from the Grand Stade de Marrakech next week, with 12 RallyGP class competitors, 112 Rally2 bikes, eight Enduro Cup Afriquia bikes and four quads.

Le Rallye du Maroc, held under the High Patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, will once again be the fifth and final round of the W2RC calendar where the world titles will be decided.

One thing adding to the Moroccan spice this coming week is the introduction of the digital roadbooks for the bike categories after five years of development and testing. “They need to get used to it” says race director David Castera as they make the transition to the new system ahead of the 2025 Dakar Rally, but also at the crucial final round of the ’24 world championship. More on this below.

Hero or Honda riders to take the W2RC crown?

Dominated by the Hero MotoSports and Monster Energy Honda teams, the 2024 W2RC season has been a game of cat and mouse the world championship leader Ross Branch (Hero MotoSports) and his challengers, Honda HRC riders Ricky Brabec and Adrien Van Beveren.

They sit on 72, 63 and 56 points respectively and it will take a disaster from the Botswanan to not take a maiden title for himself and Hero.

Facing off against the Hero trio (Branch plus teammates Sebastian Bühler and ‘Nacho Cornejo), four HRC riders Brabec and AVB are joined by Pablo Quintanilla and Tosha Schareina.

Three other factory teams will be represented in the RallyGPcategory: Sherco TVS Rally Factory with Rui Gonçalves and Lorenzo Santolino, Husqvarna Factory Racing with Luciano Benavides, (for the Argentinian, who fractured his femur on the first stage of the Ruta 40, this will be a return to competition) and Red Bull GASGAS Factory with Daniel Sanders.

No Red Bull KTM you will note with riders injured and/or sacked. In truth, the team is not yet confirmed for Dakar ‘25 but is expected and rumors say it will incorporate the Husqvarna and GASGAS teams and riders to become a single, orange squad. 

Rally2 hot contest

The Rally2 class main W2RC protagonists include the leader Romain Dumontier, who will again welcome Honda factory satellite team support, Cox (BAS World KTM Racing), Michael Docherty (BAS World KTM Racing), and Harith Noah (Sherco TVS Rally Factory), winner of the category on the Dakar.

The new generation of Rally2 emerging talents includes Tobias Ebster (BAS World KTM Racing), winner of the Original by Motul category on his first Dakar and the young Spanish moto-x rider Edgar Canet (BAS World KTM Racing), who only switched to rally-raid a year ago.

Mason Klein‘s younger brother Carter Klein (BAS World KTM Racing) is, like his sibling back in 2021, making his international rally-raid debut on the Rallye du Maroc. Score 2023 champion in the USA and current series leader, Carter is one of the rising stars of American Bajas. Mason has been warning for a few years now that his brother could soon be faster than he is – it’s a shame however not to see Mason at the race.

The Kove team will be back in action with Chinese rider Sunier Sunier. As will Fantic Racing Rally with Tommaso Montanari and Jérémy Miroir, plus Spanish female trials and extreme enduro specialist and three-times Dakar finisher Sandra Gomez.

More on that here: Sandra Gomez signs with Fantic Factory Rally Team for Dakar 2025

Alongside them, Japan’s Shinya Fujiwara, Shingo Sugimura and Yuri Kahara will reflect the truly international flavour of the Rally2 category. The hundred or so competitors of the Rally2 class will represent 21 nationalities.

100% Digital Road Book – “They need to get used to it”

The Rallye du Maroc will once again lead the way and, with a common race director and team behind the event, set the tone for the Dakar next January.

The evolution of the digital road book in tablet form, running for five years, reaches its conclusion at the Rallye Du Maroc with all motorcycles now obliged to use the system.

Given to competitors 20 minutes before the start, the digi roadbook signalled the end of the ‘mapmen’ and meant professionals and amateurs were put on an equal footing, with the former no longer able to benefit from the preparatory work of the factory teams’ cartographers, who had been busy deciphering the road book notes using satellite images since the evening before the stage.

The issue and the reason why bikes have taken longer to adopt the tablet than their four-wheeled counterparts, is the glare from the sun on the screen. It will be interesting to see how riders finally cope and particularly the RallyGP riders who are obviously faster but also who have more to lose if they make mistakes with reading the new books.

“RallyGP riders have been testing the product all summer and all the teams are ready to use it”

David Castera, race director in Morocco and Dakar, himself a former professional motorcycle racer, is not worried about the transition: “Obviously, pro riders will say that they can’t see as well and that it was better before. But we had to take the plunge. They need to get used to it and work differently. For our part, we’re going to continue to develop the product to improve it as we go along and make it easier and easier to read.

“It’s always a pressure to innovate like this on the Rallye du Maroc because you can’t impact on the race, you have to be sure that everything will work. We’ve given ourselves the necessary means, we’ve carried out tests. If we’ve waited this long it is to be 100% sure.

“Up until now, we have exempted the top category, but the RallyGP riders have been testing the product all summer and all the teams are ready to use it. You have to know how to evolve, and it's part of the logic of our sport to stop using paper and move into the digital era.”

2024 Rallye Du Maroc schedule:

2 October at 2 pm: opening of the service park (Marrakesh Stadium)

4 October: technical and administrative scrutineering + briefing

5 October: FIM administrative scrutineering and press conference

6 October: prologue: prologue in Marrakesh (road section: 49 km/ special: 25 km/ total: 74 km)

7 October: stage 1 Zagora–Zagora (road section: 228 km/special: 268 km/total: 496 km)

8 October: stage 2 Zagora–Zagora (road section: 158 km/special: 317 km/total: 475 km)

9 October: stage 3 Zagora–Mengoub-Bouârfa (road section: 358 km / special: 318 km/ total: 676 km)

10 October: stage 4 Mengoub-Bouârfa–Mengoub-Bouârfa (road section: 61 km/special: 312 km/total: 373 km)

11 October: stage 5 Mengoub-Bouârfa–Mengoub-Bouârfa (road section: 102 km/ special: 272 km/total: 374 km)

2024 Rallye Du Maroc Bike class entry list:

More information: www.rallyemaroc.com

Photo Credit: A.S.O. | Julien Delfosse