Author: norwitdakarracing

The Rallye du Maroc 2025 event has completed its opening stage from the city of Fez to the city of Erfoud. The Slovak crew Benko – Sýkora on the Taurus T3 Max vehicle also competed in it.

The first stage of the event included in the world championship series has completed its opening stage. In it, the only Slovak crew of the Taurus T3 Max buggy competed, finishing in seventeenth place in the Challenge category.

The course of the first stage consisted of a diverse surface, with 85% of the measured section completed by the competing crews on a hard surface, which was made up of soil, 12% of the course was a rocky surface, and the remaining 3% was on sand. The start of the measured section of the opening stage was located at an altitude of 1059 meters. Shortly after the start, the track climbed to an altitude of 1,500 meters above sea level, with the finish line at an altitude of 919 meters. The measured section was two hundred and ninety-eight kilometers long, and the passing section measured a total of four hundred and eighty-one kilometers.

“Today’s stage was the longest of all the stages that await us at the Rallye du Maroc 2025, but we managed everything without any problems and, what makes me very happy, we moved up in the order of precedence. But the track was especially broken at the beginning, there were a lot of huge stones on it and we had to be really careful not to damage the car. Then it got better, but when we reached the highest point of the track, it was so incredibly windy that the car couldn’t even go against the wind. Of course, bigger cars with powerful engines starting behind us were overtaking us and so we were actually constantly driving in the dust with reduced visibility. But I have to praise our car, it really worked great. We are happy that we are already in the bivouac, where it is also incredibly windy and you can’t really see because of the dust. But we are satisfied, everything is as it should be. As we mentioned yesterday, our goal is first and foremost to complete the complete competition up to finish line. Now we have four stages to go around the city of Erfoud, with the track heading to a different side of the world every day. We hope that we will do well here too,” said Marek Sýkora, co-driver after reaching the finish line.

Today (14.10.2025) the second stage awaits the competitors, the total length of which is planned to be three hundred and ninety-three kilometers, of which three hundred and six will be measured. The surface will be 55% hard earth, 12% rocky, and the crews will enjoy sand on more than a third of the track. In addition, sand dunes will also await the competitors on the track tomorrow, and the height difference between the lowest point and the highest will be almost three hundred meters.

Martin Benko, together with Marek Sýkora, the only Slovak crew competing in the Rallye du Maroc 2025, successfully completed the opening Prologue of the competition.

A nineteen-kilometer-long prologue plus a sixty-four-kilometer crossing kicked off this year’s Rallye du Maroc. As part of the Prologue, the competitors completed an initial test of the competition, which also determines the starting order for the competition. Slovaks Martin Benko and co-driver Marek Sýkor finished in twentieth place in the Challenger category, which is not a bad position at all to begin with. It should also be taken into account that Martin entered the aforementioned category only this year and his rivals include many world-famous drivers who have much more experience with competitions than the Rallye du Maroc.

“I am extremely satisfied. The placement is not bad at all. Our goal is simply to reach the finish line of the competition, complete the entire competition and gain as much experience as possible. Especially in my case, Marek has experience to share and that is exactly what is happening. He is an excellent co-driver, not only in terms of navigation, but he can also slow me down or give me a boost if necessary. Morocco is great, the track was very nice, although it was short, but that is usually how the Prologue is. Tomorrow we have the first “hard” stage and that will be a different story. But as I said, the priority for us is to reach the finish line and we will try to adapt to that. I believe that we will do well,” assessed Prologue Martin Benko.

As Martin already told us, tomorrow all participants of the Rallye du Maroc 2025 will face the first stage, which will go from the city of Fez to the city of Erfoud. As part of it, the competitors must complete a total of two hundred and ninety-eight kilometers of timed sections, as well as four hundred and eighty-one passing sections, so in total they will complete a nearly seven hundred and eighty kilometers long and quite strenuous stage. Of course, we will inform you again about how they did on it.