Tim De Bondt will enter the 2026 Dakar Rally in an IVECO PowerStar from Team de Rooy.

De Bondt is a workshop supervisor for JOST Group, a logistics firm that transports across much of Western and Central Europe as well as Tunisia. Hailing from Antwerp, he works for JOST’s Belgian base in Flanders.

He primarily does amateur rallies like the Rallye Breslau, which he’s entered twice, in a GINAF truck as well as an SSV.

“It helps me on my emotional health,” he said in a video posted by JOST about his Dakar plans. “It gives me my entertainment. It helps me clear my head. And it gives me the possibility to do some stuff that regularly you don’t do because trucks on the road (versus) rally trucks, it’s far more different.”

The Dakar plan came together via his friend Marc Leeuw, who raced the Dakar Rally four times and whose son Marnix will also drive for Team de Rooy in 2026. As part of the arrangement, De Bondt also got his own IVECO from the de Rooy camp that he noted has “a little bit more horsepower than the GINAF.”

De Bondt also compared the PowerStar to cars because of differences like the navigator sitting on the right side, as opposed to the center like the GINAF. The suspension system is also different.

Featured image credit: JOST