Despite a successful run with Can-Am that’s placed Alexandre Pinto atop the World Rally-Raid Championship in SSV, Old Friends Rally Team has switched to Polaris.

The team’s Polaris RZR Pro R will make it competition debut at the Baja Aragón in July before running the final two W2RC rounds, one of which is the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid Portugal on their home soil. Before that, the car will appear at the 2026 Dakar Rally presentation in Barcelona this weekend.

As part of the move, the team has formed a strategic partnership with FIA Baja Cup powerhouse Santag Racing. Santag will import CAP 4 Racing’s Polaris RZR model to Portugal for Old Friends to use.

“The goals are clearly defined: to win the World Rally-Raid Championship title and fight for a podium at the next Dakar, the most iconic event on the global calendar,” reads a team statement.

Pinto currently has a 19-point lead over Enrico Gaspari in the W2RC SSV standings. With the Can-Am Maverick X3 XRS, he finished third in class (first among those earning points) at the Dakar Rally followed by sixth (third for W2RC) at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge. In the South African Safari Rally, he won two stages and the Prologue before placing sixth again and third for points-eligible racers.

Old Friends Rally Team has fielded W2RC non-points entries as well for Carlos Vento and José Nogueira in 2025; the latter finished third in Abu Dhabi. At the regional level, the team supports bike racers like Martim Ventura, who won the Carta Rallye in April as an Old Friends rider, and competes in the Campeonato Portugal de Todo-o-terreno’s T3 and T4 classes with those such as Herlando Araújo.

Polaris is the twice reigning Dakar Rally SSV class winner.

Featured image credit: Matteo Gebbia / Edophoto / DPPI / ASO