Francisco López Contardo is one of the top UTV rally raiders today, having won the Dakar Rally thrice in such vehicles and the inaugural World Rally-Raid Championship in T3. While it took some luck courtesy of a penalties, López recorded his first W2RC SSV win under modern FIA regulations at the Rallye du Maroc.

Fellow Can-Am Maverick R driver Jeremías González Ferioli would have beaten López for his second win of the season, on the heels of claiming the UTV’s maiden homologated-era W2RC win at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge in February. However, Ferioli received over five minutes’ worth of penalties that instead dropped him to second behind López: he got three minutes tacked on for failing to let a faster car pass him in Stage 1, another two minutes in Stage 5 for missing a waypoint, and ten more seconds for speeding in the Power Stage.

Consequently, López was promtoed to the SSV win by just 11 seconds over Ferioli. It is his first win under the T4 banner (still used today unofficially to describe any production side-by-side) since the 2021 Dakar Rally.

López won the first stage but had some mistakes that included a missed waypoint himself in Stage 4. He was 14 minutes behind Ferioli entering the final day, and even without the penalty still made up a good chunk of that margin.

Hunter Miller completed the Maverick R podium sweep in third. He had a speeding penalty in the Prologue, crashed into a concrete pillar in a dune during the third stage, and nearly hit a camel in Stage 4 while going through dust. Despite the occasional misadventure, he came within just three minutes of his Can-Am allies.

Kyle Chaney, an American Maverick R driver like Miller, scored a top five in class in his maiden rally raid. The defending King of the Hammers champion suffered a broken A-arm on the first stage but otherwise ran a fairly clean race.

Can-Ams occupied nearly the entire top ten save for Hélder Rodrigues’ Polaris RZR in fourth. Oscar Masó was also the only top-ten Can-Am finisher who didn’t drive the swanky new Maverick R as he was instead in the older X3.

While he finished sixth, Manuel Andújar was officially the SSV winner according to the W2RC since he was the highest finishing driver registered for points. This meant the 2024 Quad champ received the maximum 30 points for winning and technically scored his first victory as an SSV driver.

Mindaugas Sidabras was seventh to win the Road to Dakar.

Alexandre Pinto, who clinched the 2025 SSV title before Morocco, retired after three stages with a mechanical failure.

Results

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver	Navigator	Team	Class	Total Time	Margin
1	34	401	Francisco López Contardo*	Alvaro León	Can-Am Factory Team	SSV1	17:41:41	Leader
2	24	411	Jeremías González Ferioli*	Gonzalo Rinaldi	Can-Am Factory Team	SSV1	17:41:52	+ 00:11
3	25	408	Hunter Miller*	Jeremy Gray	Can-Am Factory Team	SSV1	17:44:40	+ 2:59
4	30	405	Hélder Rodrigues*	Gonçalo Reis	Santag Racing	T4	18:54:56	+ 1:13:15
5	32	419	Kyle Chaney*	Jacob Argubright	Can-Am Factory Team	SSV1	19:18:47	+ 1:37:06
6	40	406	Manuel Andújar	Andres Frini	South Racing	SSV1	20:25:36	+ 2:43:55
7	43	429	Mindaugas Sidabras*	Ernestas Česokas	Izoton Sport	SSV1	21:37:38	+ 3:55:57
8	48	418	Maciej Oleksowicz*	Marcin Sienkiewicz	South Racing	SSV1	23:38:57	+ 5:57:16
9	49	432	Oscar Masó*	Pedro Lopez	Pedregà Team	T4	24:09:54	+ 6:28:02
10	50	423	Richard Aczel*	Wouter Rosegaar	South Racing	SSV1	24:18:47	+ 6:37:06
11	60	422	José Oscar Nogueira*	Arcélio Couto	Old Friends Rally Team	T4	25:12:30	+ 17:30:49
12	62	410	Rui Serpa*	Rui Pita	Santag Racing	T4	36:02:48	+ 18:21:07
13	66	414	Juan Miguel Fidel*	Javier Ventaja	BE Racing	T4	36:58:35	+ 19:16:54
14	69	430	Philippe Boutron*	Mayeul Barbet	BTR	SSV1	39:23:13	+ 21:41:32
15	70	420	Gustavo Gallego*	Eugenio Arrieta	South Racing	SSV1	39:56:39	+ 22:14:58
16	73	428	Vic Flip*	Gerhard Schmiedberger	MM Rallye	SSV1	45:20:29	+ 27:38:48
17	74	424	Geoff Minnitt*	Stuart Gregory	South Racing	SSV1	50:35:26	+ 32:53:45
18	75	426	Joan Piferrer*	Xavier Blanco	Buggy Masters Team	SSV1	51:32:05	+ 33:50:24
19	77	433	Benoît Lepietre*	Peter Serra	BTR	SSV1	54:15:39	+ 36:33:58
20	78	431	José María Camí*	Cristian Camí	Buggy Masters Team	SSV1	55:30:01	+ 37:48:20
21	80	417	Hassan Jameel*	Maciej Giemza	South Racing	SSV1	58:22:24	+ 40:40:43
22	81	425	Michael Devos*	Karim Ez-Zouaq	BTR	T4	74:27:22	+ 56:45:41
DNF	DNF	402	Alexandre Pinto	Bernardo Oliveira	Old Friends Rally Team	T4	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	403	João Dias*	Nuno Morais	Santag Racing	T4	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	412	Luís Cidade*	Sebastián Cesana	South Racing	SSV1	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	434	Pedro Caparrós*	Abel Montoya	Pedregà Team	T4	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	435	Benoît Delmas*	Firdaouss Al-Fannane	Objectif Maroc MMP	T4	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	437	Juan Manuel Mañá*	Giovanna di Blasi	Automode	T4	DNF	N/A

Stage winners

Stage	Overall	Driver	Time
Prologue	27	João Dias*	13:04.8
Stage 1	30	João Dias*	3:15:40
Stage 2	21	Francisco López Contardo*	3:46:05
Stage 3	23	Francisco López Contardo*	3:57:38
Stage 4	33	Jeremías González Ferioli*	3:09:18
Stage 5	26	Francisco López Contardo*	3:07:13
Power Stage	19	Hélder Rodrigues*	21:50

W2RC

Drivers

Rank	Driver	Points	Margin
1	Alexandre Pinto	234	Leader
2	Enrico Gaspari	190	– 44
3	Michele Cinotto	105	– 129
4	Manuel Andújar	98	– 136
5	Claude Fournier	81	– 153
6	Sara Price	55	– 179
7	Mário Franco	50	– 184
8	Roger Grouwels	45	– 189
9	Mansour Al-Helei	29	– 205
10	Fernando Álvarez	12	– 222
T-11	Diego Martinez	2	– 232
T-11	Carlos Vento	2	– 232

Navigators

Rank	Navigator	Points	Margin
1	Bernardo Oliveira	234	Leader
2	Fausto Mota	140	– 94
3	Maurizio Dominella	78	– 156
4	Andres Frini	56	– 178
5	Sean Berriman	55	– 179
6	Patrick Jimbert	53	– 181
T-7	Antoine Lecourbe	50	– 184
T-7	João Miranda	50	– 184
9	Rudolf Meijer	45	– 189
10	Bernardo Graue	42	– 192
11	Khalid Al-Kendi	29	– 205
12	Grégory Revest-Arnoux	28	– 206
13	Alberto Bertoldi	27	– 207
14	Xavier Panseri	12	– 222
T-15	Jorge Brandão	2	– 232
T-15	Sergio Lafuente	2	– 232

Featured image credit: Kin Marcin / Red Bull Content Pool