WRC2 regular Rachele Somaschini will make her Dakar Classic debut in 2026, driving a much bigger vehicle than the Citroën C3 Rally2 that she’s used to. She will lead the first Italian all-women crew at Dakar, piloting a Mercedes-Benz Unimog 435 truck with Serena Rodella and Monica Buonamano accompanying her.

Somaschini is a four-time Italian national women’s rally champion with titles in 2019, 2021, 2023, and 2024. She began competing in the World Rally Championship-2 in 2025, making five starts in her Citroën with Nicola Arena as co-driver. Her best overall finish was 31st at the Rally Italia Sardegna, while placing as high as 14th among WRC2 Challenger driuvers at Rally Sweden.

“I still can’t believe this great dream is becoming reality,” Somaschini stated. “I’ve been imagining the Dakar ever since I was a little girl. Anyone who knows me knows that pushing beyond my limits is the driving force of my existence, the only way I feel I can fight the disease I live with and for which there is still no cure.

“With the Dakar Classic, I’m testing myself in something far beyond my comfort zone, without really knowing what awaits me, but I’m incredibly excited.”

The truck will be prepped by Tecnosport. It is colored purple to promote cystic fibrosis awareness, a disease that Somaschini has been dealing with since birth. She is also an ambassador for the Italian Cystic Fibrosis Research Foundation and head of the #CorrerePerUnRespiro project, the latter founded in 2016 to raise awareness and funds for cystic fibrosis research; from 2016 to 2024, the campaign raised over €470,000. Correre Per Un Respiro (“Run for a Breath”) is also the title of her biography that she published in 2023.

“Reconciling the strict and exhausting race schedule with my therapies and my sensitivity to high temperatures will be a challenge within the challenge,” she continued, “but at the same time, it’s a unique opportunity to bring the message of CorrerePerUnRespiro to other continents and to environments very different from mine. Faced with such an opportunity, difficulty becomes motivation, and I can’t wait to get started.”

Featured image credit: Rachele Somaschini