Rebecca Busi’s third Dakar Rally will have to wait until 2026 after her sponsor suddenly withdrew just weeks before the 2025 race. She was due to compete in the SSV class, where she finished third in this year’s World Rally-Raid Championship.

“I’m sad to say that I won’t be at Dakar 2025,” she begins in a video posted to social media on Thursday. “The main sponsor I had secured for the next two seasons backed out on Wednesday while I was training for Dakar in Copiapó. This past week, I’ve called everyone I know who might be able to help me make it to the start line, especially since I had what I thought was a great season with excellent results.

“Unfortunately, with just 15 days until Dakar, it’s impossible. Even if I pooled all my money, all of my dad’s money—which I would never touch, and my co-driver’s money and everyone else who’s offered to help, I still wouldn’t have enough to race Dakar. I’ll have to watch it from home.

“I was focused on training and preparing myself 100%, but I can’t overcome this.”

Busi finished 22nd in SSV at the 2024 Dakar, her second start in the main rally after retiring in the closing days of the 2023 race. She had made her Dakar debut at the Dakar Classic in 2022.

She secured primary sponsorship from OnlyFans for the 2024 season. Running the full W2RC under the OnlyFans Racing banner, she recorded podium finishes in all four of the remaining races among points-earning drivers with thirds in Abu Dhabi (fourth overall), Argentina, and Morocco (fourth) and a second in Portugal (fifth). Busi leapfrogged Argentina winner Ricardo Ramilo for the third in the championship at the season finale.

South Racing was going to provide her and navigator Sergio Lafuente with the new Can-Am Maverick R for Dakar.

Featured image credit: Edoardo Bauer / DPPI