In the annals of motorsport, few achievements resonate as profoundly as conquering the Dakar Rally. In 2025, ADB Columnist and larrikin Aussie rider Daniel “Chucky” Sanders etched his name into this elite echelon igniting a wave of national pride across Australia by winning the 2025 Dakar Rally.
The 47th edition of the Dakar Rally, held in the vast deserts of Saudi Arabia, spanned over 7453km. Sanders, riding his Red Bull KTM 450 Rally, dominated the event from the outset, seizing the lead during the prologue and maintaining his position throughout the entire race, the first for any rider to do so since Marc Coma in 2009. His relentless pace and strategy led him to clinch five stage victories.
This monumental victory marks Sanders as only the second Australian to win Dakar in the motorcycle category, following Toby Price, who claimed titles in 2016 and 2019. Moreover, Sanders is only the second rider to have triumphed in both the International Six Days Enduro (ISDE) and the Dakar Rally.
For Australia, Sanders’ victory is a cause for immense celebration. His journey from the Yarra Valley to the pinnacle of rally racing is impressive. Overcoming previous setbacks, including injuries and the inherent unpredictability of rally racing, Sanders’ triumph is a testament to his unwavering dedication.
The 2025 Dakar Rally was particularly arduous, with only 77 bikes reaching the final finish line in Shubaytah. Sanders’ ability to not only endure but excel in such conditions highlights the Herculean nature of his accomplishment. His performance not only brought glory to himself and his team but also reinforced KTM’s legacy, securing the Austrian manufacturer’s 20th Dakar victory.
We sat down with Chucky to gain insight into the mindset and experiences that propelled him to this historic victory.
Chucky’s View
Mitch Lees: How has your body recovered, mate? I saw you lost a toenail?!
Daniel Sanders: I didn’t even tell anyone about it because then that would have been one of the talking points. I broke them on day one. I kicked a rock. Both sides within half an hour and I was like, you’re joking. Normally they’ll break in the sand dunes from getting forced out the front. Like from your Steg Pegz and they’ll normally break from getting pushed in your boot.
If you look at any footage of me putting boots on or off, before the stage or after it… it was the worst part of my day… putting the boots on.
ML: Okay, so after you ripped your toenails off, how long till your foot didn’t give you agony in your boots all day?
DS: I had to wait for all the skin to die underneath because it was so fresh, the flesh. You’ll see me, I think on that 48-hour chrono stage, Red Bull did a content piece. And I’m up in the back of the camper taping my toes up and shit. Because I’m making sure they didn’t get infected from day one. Because the blisters popped straight away on day one, and I was like, oh, f**k. This isn’t good. I pretty much all of 2025 Dakar with f**ked blisters in your feet too.
ML: Was the 2025 Dakar more difficult from a riding perspective, and more difficult or less difficult from a nav perspective? Was there a particularly difficult stage?
DS: 2025 Dakar was probably more difficult, I guess the first week, especially. I think always the first week’s really hard because you come in fresh and everyone goes full tilt the whole time and your body gets that shock of backing it up each day, but the first week, terrain-wise, was tough.
I think last year was pretty tough as well, which could have been because of the bike. This year going in I felt like I did it as easy as any other year. I felt fine the whole time, didn’t feel sore or anything, but it’s not like ‘holy shit, I’ve got to back down now because I’m burning too much energy early on’, I’m gonna be able to sustain this the whole race. The navigation was as difficult as ever, the trickiest, I think.
I just was reading the roadbook and riding really well and that’s why I was so dominant for the whole race, because I didn’t lose time out front as much as the other guys did, I didn’t lose 15 minutes, it was only like five minutes I was losing, which is really good.
I was so cool, calm the whole time because I had control. I was in my comfort zone the whole time. You do lose a lot of time in the sand, there’s no way around that, every opener, we’ve looked at all the info. When you’ve got 300km of sand dunes, you’re gonna lose 10 to 12 minutes. You can’t do any better than that. Even when Luciano opened this shorter stage, it was a 150 Kays, I think, I caught him and that was six minutes and that was at the 80km mark. So every 30, 40 kays you lose three minutes, guaranteed.
You gotta sacrifice a little bit of speed but I think with all my experience over the years and after I did Morocco and how well the bike’s working, and how good I’m riding, I was just in that rhythm and it just gelled. I knew not to push too much, put the roadbook first and then the speed will come after it.
ML: With all the changes happening to the KTM team in the last 12 months with Toby Price, Matthias Walkner and Sam Sunderland getting the boot, did you feel even more pressure at the 2025 Dakar Rally?
DS: Yeah, the pressure was on for 2025 Dakar, but I like it if I know I can handle it, especially like with how I felt on the bike. Even though it was the most pressure I’ve ever had in any situation in my career I probably took it the best, and it made me concentrate even more.
I think looking back at it now, and even speaking with Grabbo or Tim Cole, my mind was good.
Because so many great riders had left, everyone at KTM listened to me and I was more in control from the team and brought that team closer around me because they really relied on me to get them a result. And they all loved the feeling that I brought every day.
ML: So what was the roadbook issue that we all thought might cost you the 2025 Dakar win?
DS: I was leading out one of the days and the tablet just suddenly stopped, at like 130km.
I lost kilometres and the CAP (compass heading), so you can’t go anywhere without that. You can’t find the right roads. So I had to just follow the other riders that were behind and I signalled to them to say my roadbook’s dead, I’ll follow you guys, and 30, 40km down the track they all got lost in this little rocky sandy area, and I’m like I’ve got no reference because my roadbook’s not working.
I went to Skyler Howes, and he’s like ‘Yeah, I’ve got no CAP’, so I’m like, alright, I’m not going to follow you because you’ll get lost, I’ll go to the other guy that was creeping off, and I went over there, and then he got lost for 10 to 15 minutes, so then I went back and then Skyler disappeared, so he obviously found the right track. Then everything went back working. I lost a fair bit of time that day, but only getting five minutes back was a bit of a bummer… because it was all out of my control.
ML: In your columns in ADB, you’ve mentioned all the highs and lows in the last two years with injury and bike setbacks. What was different for the 2025 Dakar?
DS: Massive, massive bike changes really. From 2024 we had to improve, there was no doubt about it. So the team just pretty much redesigned the parts and bits and pieces that we needed to, to improve and make me comfortable, as well because the team got clipped a lot after last year. We have less riders, less mechanics, less crew. So it was really important to really focus and do the things that we needed to, to have a good bike under us.
Last year was very, very painful. The pressure of trying to provide the results to teams and sponsors of what I always said I was going to achieve and accomplish was hard.
When you don’t have that feeling of riding at 100 per cent, you can’t do that.
ML: So what was Adrian Van Beveran having a massive whinge about when a stage was cut short for 2025 Dakar?
DS: The fog was so bad we couldn’t get any medical support and if they can’t get a chopper out there I’m not going to the desert. Adrian’s a different rider. Let’s just say, he’s French and the whole organisation’s French. He gets special treatment, he gets extra information. So, he’s got that behind him and he can speak to anyone in French. It was him and Luciano that were the guys that could really benefit that day. There was two guys out of 120 guys that wanted to continue. The fog was dangerous and we already drank all our water. We had no gels or extra powder like electrolytes. We pretty much starved and ate what we had for our fuel at our lunch.
We didn’t want to go into the sand without supplies. I was like all the hobby riders are going to be rolling up at eight, seven, nine o’clock at night. They were going to cancel stages, give time back and all this stuff and it was getting too complicated, so they decided, that’s not right. Everyone stops there, and then Adrian and Luciano said, “Let’s just let the RallyGP guys, go because there’s only 10, 15 of us”. But that wouldn’t work either.
That’s when I [said] it’s not fair, it’s not right. I was going in more on behalf of the Rally 2 guys and a couple of them went up as well and I said it’s not fair, this is a bike category, we all do the same kilometres. The smartest thing to do is to cancel the stage.
Adrian heard that news and said, “Oh, is this Dakar or what?! You guys are all scared.” And then he pointed at me and he goes, “Maybe not Sanders, but the rest of you are all scared!”
ML: So does it take five Dakars to work this whole nav and riding thing out?
DS: Nah, I think my second year I had [it sussed]. Because I did that first year and then I did that full world championship round, I got really good experience of that roadbook.
And then the last two years I haven’t had that many races due to injury and I was struggling with the bike. So yeah, you have to have the bike comfortable, because you have to be able to take your eyes off the track and read the roadbook. We couldn’t do that last year. We were so scared of crashing from deflection and everything. So that was a big thing, and that’s why my win took so long. I thought I could have won the second year, that was the second best prepared I went into the rally, but this year definitely helped after winning Morocco and having that extra confidence.
ML: Grabbo tells me your outright speed is just faster than everyone else. Is that true?
DS: Yeah, for sure. Toby would be the only guy that could stay with me as a rider when he was on, if he was riding really good. I just knew that the other riders, off a rally bike, on a motocross track, they’re not gonna beat me. I’ve been at the top of the world at the Six Day and beating some unreal riders, and then also with my sand riding and desert racing here in Australia, I knew my outright speed was really good.
Once I got my nav right and I was confident with the bike and that, I could just ride at 90 per cent, and that’s still fast enough to control everyone else.
ML: So you never felt like you had to push really hard in the 2025 Dakar Rally?
DS: Nah, I only did that once. One of the stages, like when I got lost a bit near the end, I got pretty pissed off, so I just went full gas for a bit and hit some stuff just to try and catch some time back. Once I cooled down it was alright. I didn’t go out of my comfort zone. I stayed cool and made sure I didn’t mess anything up.
ML: Do the Honda guys gang up on you with tactics?
DS: Yeah, like the first few days it was pretty easy because normally on all the other years there’s always that yoyo effect of people starting out back and then getting out front. Honda had five riders there, and they could play around a lot, but everyone’s fighting for their own position as well, and then there’s that chrono stage where those guys were slowing up, and you never know [if they’re hoping you slow up] and then some guys push out front.
It was like trying to find that balance and I’m in the middle because I’m out fighting for myself, pretty much. So I didn’t really worry about those guys and what they were doing. I already had a 10-minute lead before the chrono stage – that’s pretty good at day two.
ML: Were you worried about the mass start for the 2025 Dakar final stage, that there could be carnage?
DS: I was fine about it. All the positions were set in stone by then. Everyone just had to finish. We knew it was 60 kays and nothing happens in that.
Everyone just jumped the gun because it was a countdown clock. It was a countdown from 15 seconds to zero and everyone took off at one second to go. So the guys were out front and I ended up using a little technique of riding to get good drive and catch back up, I got into second in the first corner, which is two kays away. Everyone just wanted to make it to the finish line.
ML: This year you seemed to turn the whole Dakar tactic of ‘sit back and wait and charge in the last week’ on it head by leading from start to finish. Why the decision to go out and lead from the start?
DS: Everyone’s like, it’s an endurance race, you can’t push the whole time, and I’m like, nah, stuff that, I’m gonna go full gas!
Every day is a cross country for me, so I just went as fast as I could every day. You make a mistake, and you’re like, ‘oh shit, I gotta make up 15 minutes, so I gotta go full gas’, and then, you’re the fastest in those sections, but then you lost 10 minutes because you got lost, so you’ve gotta find that balance. I’ve done so many rallies now that I understand the rhythm.
Ricky Brabec only won one stage last year and he won Dakar. So they’re like, you don’t need to be at the front to win. I think if you’re going to be the best rider at it you have to open out front and minimise mistakes. I knew from Morocco when I opened and won a stage, that my opening speed and how confident I was with the bike, that I could go out and win the stage and have no stress of being out front and opening.
ML: Last year you brought Gilesy into the team, who is your suspension buddy here in Australia, did that help?
DS : Yeah, Gilesy is a wild man but he’s got that much experience and I’ve had the opportunity to see how other people work around the world and he’s just got so much experience and knowledge. Everything from supercross, motocross, desert racing, to Finke, Hattah, enduro, and he’s worked with a lot of good riders and knows so many different settings.
I just knew that he worked well with me, and I think that’s what our team really needed was someone who I could trust in the suspension game. And I needed someone who I knew and could communicate with me with what’s going on.
He would say, “Alright, we’re working on this”, or “This was a problem we found, and we’ll fix that now and we’ll try this way”, and it just helped me understand that I could trust the bike every day going out. If he makes a mistake, he will own it and tell you.
So it was really a big, big thing that helped a lot. And this is the first year we had no suspension complaints from the team. We didn’t service suspension for two days at one stage. So I did a shock for three days and there was no drama, but normally every day everything was getting stripped and serviced.
ML: Now that you’re a Dakar winner, the pay cheque must be pretty good! Got any plans with your new-found fame around the world and bonus money? And did KTM pay out with the issues they have at HQ?
DS: Yeah, we’ll have a talk to the accountant. I’ve got everything I need, I’ve got bikes, I’ve got land to ride on, I’ve got machines to build jumps and stuff. I like to stay low key on the farm, really. I’ll put it away and save it because you just never know what’s going to happen in the old world.
Us riders always knew [KTM’s financial difficulty] was happening. When they officially announced it we were already going to Dakar, everything was on the ship, so we were going, all that money was already out. And it was just time to go get that result. If we didn’t get that result there, I’m not sure if we’d still have the team, to be honest.
Winning Dakar does open doors. Hopefully it does open up new opportunities for the future, but I’ve got plenty of years left in me for more Dakar wins!
Results
- Daniel Sanders
- Tosha Schareina
- Adrien Van Beveren
- Luciano Benavides
- Ricky Brabec
- Toby Hederics
- Andrew Houlihan DNF Stage 8
