Daniel Sanders drops in to tell us what it was like winning his first rally in a year and what he’s got next. Here’s what he had to say about October.
Well we finally are back on top. It’s been a long time since my last victory in Sonora 2023 then the nasty femur break one month after. What a roller coaster I have been on for a couple years in rally.
I feel now the momentum is shifting a good way with the team and the bike, with a smaller tight group around me we have steered the ship in the correct way and I got to show it at the Morocco Rally. What changed? I can’t really tell but a lot of hard work and testing and developing this frame over the years we needed to try something really crazy and we did. We found the direction comparing some old and new things and finding out the areas we needed to be better and that happened.
I can now ride at 100% whereas before I was riding at 50% confidence, it has helped so much. I’m really looking forward to Dakar now this year and I can be confident to tell everyone I will be up the front if I don’t mess up! It’s all on me!
How the last month went, it started in Spain testing the new digital roadbook and to be honest I really like it, the screen was a little hard sometimes in the sun but only for a second as it can glare you in the eyes at the perfect position. It has some really nice features and is so easy to use and fast. The downside is we are relying on the system to not shut down and there are a lot of connecting parts and wires that we rely on out in the dunes.
Thankfully none of the top riders had an issue other than Ross Branch on the Hero who had the tablet break off his mount on day one. That was a structure problem not a tablet. Every team had different mounts and angles to read the screens, ours is steeper than most teams which is harder for a tall rider like me standing up as we have to crouch a little more than usual. We are still trying to figure out what is best for riding and to find the best position.
A photo shoot for Dakar and the KTM switch shoot was done the week prior to the race in Morocco were I finally got to change gear colours and get used to my new orange bike. It’s about three or four days of action shots, stills and interviews of how fast we are going to go at the next Dakar. Once that was ticked off we launched into some roadbook practice in the Moroccan terrain which was in a similar area that we race. Getting used to the speed and the tricky navigation was the key to a good start to the race.
The race was tense, I felt I had a heap of pressure to perform as I finally had a good weapon under me that I was confident that I could win on. I had told the team and the bosses that so I was shitting myself a bit. If I didn’t get a good result there or showed some serious speed, I felt I was going to be put in the naughty corner.
I rose to the pressure as I loved it and performed the best I could. Winning that race was a massive monkey off the back for myself and the team and now we can just focus on training and not so much testing all the time. The team atmosphere was insane at the finish and it was a great to have that feeling back again. I’m looking forward to the next two months training before Dakar. Thanks for the support people.
