Jeremy Knuiman is new to the World Rally-Raid Championship, but the sand racer is off to a good start. He set the sixth fastest time among all riders in the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid Portugal’s Prologue and was quickest in Rally2.

Knuiman is coming off a sixth-place finish in the prestigious Enduropale du Touquet in February. While sand racing and motocross are his specialties, he has been dabbling in rallies and showed solid pace like winning the Prologue of last year’s Rallye Breslau. RBI Sport, who runs Breslau, also has him on its RBI Next Gen Racers program to train the sport’s future stars.

He edged out Dušan Drdaj by one second for the Rally2 win. Drdaj and Bruno Santos set nearly identical times of three minutes and eight seconds, but the former beat him by four-tenths of a second.

RallyGP riders swept the top five with Daniel Sanders ahead of Tosha Schareina. Dakar Rally winner Luciano Benavides was 15th overall and seventh in class, 12 seconds behind Sanders, after struggling on soft terrain. Benavides admitted he “didn’t feel comfortable at all.”

He wasn’t the only rider to run into some issues with the course profile on Tuesday. Skyler Howes admitted he had “a couple of little mess ups in the corner”, while Adrien Van Beveren said it was “difficult to find a good flow.”

“It was good, somewhat fast, really slick in areas, slicker than I was predicting especially with the conditions and the weather out here. I was thinking it to be a little more wet,” third-placed Ricky Brabec explained. “Overall, it was cool. Not a lot of people might know this but I haven’t really ridden a motorcycle since Dakar, so to go the speed and to push like we did today, it felt cool, but the race is not determined by the Prologue so I’m looking forward to the next five days.

“The wind is coming, the clouds are coming, let’s hope the weather is nice to us. The roads here are a little bit scary. With the rain and the clouds coming in, it’s going to be muddy and scary so it’s going to be unpredictable this week. Let’s just try to stay on two wheels and put the skis out when we need to and make it to the finish line.”

Gonçalo Amaral, winner of the 2024 Rally-Raid Portugal in Rally3, easily topped the category by nine seconds over Steve Pasco. Antanas Kanopkinas was faster than his teammate Adomas Gančierius by three seconds.

Unlike at Dakar, the Prologue only consisted of FIM entries. The FIA removed the Prologue, which didn’t count for drivers’ overall times to begin with, at all events save for the season opener. Consequently, the FIA will begin racing on Wednesday in Stage 1.

Prologue winners

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	1	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	3:01.2
Rally2	6	81	Jeremy Knuiman	Xraids Experience	3:07.3
Rally3	12	69	Gonçalo Amaral	Wingmotor Honda	3:12.6
Quad	25	171	Antanas Kanopkinas	CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team	3:25.5
Experimental	29	17	Pedro Bianchi Prata*	Offroad Center Bianchi Prata	3:32.4

Featured image credit: Matteo Gebbia / Edophoto / DPPI / ASO