Toto might have blessed the rains down in Africa a bit too much.

The first day of the Fenix Rally was plagued by heavy downpours, preventing competitors from getting to the bivouac in Douz. As a result, a temporary camp was set up in Tozeur for everyone to stay the rest of the day while the competitors’ meeting was replaced by online statement.

Another delay occurred because a ferry carrying additional racers arrived in Tunis late, which pushed the start back a few hours and led to some liaisons being at night.

To make matters worse, some riders reported their roadbook had started glitching out. 2025 was the first year that the Fenix Rally mandated electronic roadbooks, which are more convenient but prone to issues compared to their paper counterparts. Unfortunately for Fenix, it didn’t take long for said problems to strike.

“Everything went fairly well, but the brand-new digital roadbook was frustrating,” Quad rider Antanas Kanopkinas commented. “It still needs improvements.”

His teammate Gaëtan Martinez said the “organizers wanted to ensure everything worked smoothly. Unfortunately, it was quite the opposite: nothing worked, and so far, they’ve only found a temporary solution.”

Even the four-wheelers weren’t safe. Koen Wauters said his Sentinel, which is used to alert the driver that a faster car is tailing and wants to overtake, “sometimes worked and sometimes not.” His validation system also failed and caused him to be penalized for missing a waypoint. Wauters filed a complaint, but the ongoing move meant “it was chaos in the makeshift bivouac and nobody really knew how or what to do.”

Despite the turmoil, the stage itself was relatively good, if a bit slick. Kanopkinas and Martinez were able to complete the leg without major issues and were separated by just 36 seconds.

Edvard Sokolovskij, who narrowly lost the bike win at RBI’s Rallye Breslau in June, kicked off Fenix with a vengeance as he cleared Dương Nguyễn-Khoa by exactly four minutes.

Even after just the first stage, the Car Limited class already has a clear top dog as Sascha Capraro finished over 11 minutes ahead of Ewald Holler.

Others weren’t as lucky as their races were turned upside down on Day 1. Pascal Feryn’s clutch came loose so he had to finish the sage without a servo motor.

‘Upside down’ was quite literal in Richard Cretier’s case. Just 90 kilometers into the stage, his truggy rolled into a ditch.

“We were approaching the mountain and there was a ravine on our left,” his navigator Sandra Rivière started. “I pointed it out to Richard and told him to stay to the right so we wouldn’t fall in. I glanced down to look at the next section of the roadbook, and then I felt the left rear give way and Richard yelled, ‘Shit!’

“I realized something was wrong and then we rolled onto our sides and on our roof. We were trapped inside until we were rescued by some Tunisians who pulled us out. We had a real scare and some bruises.”

Despite the accident, the support truck flipped them back on their wheels and they continued on. Due to the time limit, they were officially registered as a retirement but can otherwise continue the race after making necessary repairs.

Stage 1 winners

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Total Time
Car Open	214	Vincent Thijs	RT Offroad	1:08:46.10
Car Limited	219	Sascha Capraro	SCAP	1:39:44.63
SSV	440	Hugues Lacam	Speed Up Racing	1:02:52.93
Truck	506	Tom Heuer	Sueptitz Motorsport	1:16:10.45
Enduro	91	Edvard Sokolovskij	AG Dakar School	1:05:52.00
ATV	10	Antanas Kanopkinas	CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team	1:09:04.11
Discovery	601	Iliya Velikov	Amarok	2:25:04.66

Featured image credit: Sandra Rivière