The 2025 Rallye Breslau kicked off Sunday with the shortest stage, a Prologue spanning just 8.98 timed kilometers. Even with the short length, it wasn’t devoid of drama.

The Prologue was designed to be tight and technical, reavily reliant on navigation rather than speed. Most got through it fine. Others like Jens Dethloff weren’t as fortunate as they crashed or encountered other issues. Dakar Rally veteran Pascal de Baar, trading in a truck for a bike, did not finish the stage. Tadas Gilys, Michiel Lagerweij, and Remco de Jong also couldn’t make it to the end.

Conversely, while the Prologue typically doesn’t mean much for the rally at large, Sunday was a showing out for the young riders. Jeremy Knuiman was the only bike to set a time below nine minutes as he beat Justin Gerlach by 17 seconds.

Knuiman, who was born in 2002, and 2001 baby Gerlach are part of the new RBI Next Gen Racers development program run by Breslau organizer RBI Sport. Their classmate Berend de Ruiter ranked fourth for Enduro.

Dakar regular Paul Spierings topped the SSVs by eight seconds on Arūnas Lekavičius. At 7:45.53, he was the fastest vehicle overall and one of four who cleared the eight-minute mark. Lekavičius, Arūnas Simanavičius, and Algirdas Talutis also set times below eight.

William van Groningen was the only defending overall winner from 2024 to win their class in the Prologue. His truck beat Jasper Fiers’ GINAF by a minute and 52 seconds.

Stage winners

Cross-Country

ClassNumberCompetitorTeamTotal Time
ATV3Adam KrysiakPolaris Polska Racing Team8:47.79
Car Limited201Robbert van LutterveldSaris 4×4 Rally Team11:49.72
Car Open228Remigiusz WutkowskiWutkowski Motorsport8:52.65
Enduro54Jeremy KnuimanTeam Knuiman8:43.77
SSV434Paul SpieringsRebellion Spierings7:45.53
Truck Big601William Van GroningenDust Warriors9:41.84
Truck Small604Paolo CalabriaEagle Racing Team11:24.76

Extreme

ClassNumberCompetitorTeamTotal Time
Car Limited308Serge LestradeLestrade13:38.96
Car Open301Hardo MereHM Racing Team9:09.52
Truck Big651Oliver LeyhTeam Dolmar12:46.68
Truck Small658Felix MüllenheimBronco Racing11:08.60

Discovery

ClassNumberCompetitorTeamTotal Time
ATV702Tom LauwereysTom Lauwereys12:15.78
SSV753Michael DordainMicaSally14:57.66
Non-competition classes

Featured image credit: RBI Media

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