It’s been a tough rookie season at the highest level of bike rallies for Edgar Canet, who entered the Rallye du Maroc seventh in RallyGP points. While he wasn’t expected to wipe the floor like he did Rally2 in 2025, his best finish was only a fourth at the Rally-Raid Portugal.

Fortunately, fortune was on his side in Morocco.

Canet didn’t win any of the five stages nor the Prologue, but took the overall lead on Stage 3 by farming third-place finishes. He was 44 seconds behind Ricky Brabec after the first stage followed by 3:34 back of KTM teammate Daniel Sanders at the end of Stage 2. He fell to fourth in Stage 3, but Sanders finished further back in seventh due to navigation errors that he attributed to the roadbook. He consequently surrendered the lead to Canet as well as second to KTM’s other rider Luciano Benavides.

“The standard of professionalism specifically relating to the making of the roadbooks and the accountable persons, has been disappointing, unsafe and a drastic drop from previous years,” said Sanders. “Many mistakes in the roadbooks were present and no accountability from these people was held.

“These roadbook inaccuracies resulted in significant time loss in my results. Competing at a world-class level, we expect roadbooks to be accurate and safe. I really do hope that the new promoters of the Moroccan Rally take on feedback from all the competitors and implement it next year.”

It also didn’t help that Sanders was hit a compression that threw him off his bike. Despite rallying back to win Stage 4 and regain the top spot over Canet by 1:26 going into the last day, he hurt his left wrist and hand in the accident.

Canet ultimately finished fourth for Stage 5 and crucially 2:28 ahead of Sanders.

“There are a lot of emotions right now and what we’ve achieved doesn’t quite feel real yet,” Canet commented. “I think I need some time to really take it all in, but I’m super happy. We showed everyone what we can do and where we can be, so I’m really proud of that.

“It was a crazy race with lots of ups and downs, and navigation was really important. At certain points, I had the feeling that I was in the right place and doing what I needed to do. To win this rally is an amazing feeling and I’m really happy with what we’ve achieved. Hopefully, this isn’t the last one.”

Sanders settled for the runner-up finish and remains atop the standings with 87 points. Benavides and Tosha Schareina are tied for second with 74.

Brabec held off Benavides to keep KTM from sweeping the overall podium. Even with his stage win, it was a difficult week for Honda. Adrien Van Beveren had a stomach bug that slowed him down for much of the week, though he still held on for a top five.

Schareina, the defending RdM bike winner, struggled to find his rhythm. After his tablet glitched out, he was never able to regain what ground he lost. His seventh is the first time he finished outside the top five since a 13th at the 2023 Dakar Rally.

With Ross Branch missing the race due to injury sustained in a training crash, José Ignacio Cornejo represented Hero in RallyGP by himself. He ran as high as third in Stage 3.

Lorenzo Santolino had what he called a “tough but also positive week. We have things to improve, especially in the very rough sections, where I struggled more than I should have. We maintained a good pace in the more flowing and navigation-heavy sections, though there are still details to fine-tune to reach my peak level.” His Sherco teammate Bradley Cox was the lone retirement after crashing in Stage 1 and breaking his hand.

Skyler Howes debuted ZXMOTO Joyride Factory Rally Team in Morocco. He didn’t expect much from the bike since the engine was underpowered, meaning his goal was to accumulate as many kilometers as he could and collect data for Dakar. He ran out of fuel in Stage 1, misread the CAP heading during Stage 3 that sent him into a riverbed at KM 215, and made the wrong suspension adjustment for Stage 4, but successfully made it home.

“The chassis characteristics are really awesome. I have a lot of comfort and confidence in the characteristics of the bike,” Howes stated. “The suspension is a little too stiff in the rocks but it also bottoms too easy in the big compressions and sand dunes so we have some work to do there to get the performance curve working right.

“Still more steps to try and continue to improve overall but I am coming around on the ‘race to test’ plan. We are learning a lot under these conditions so regardless of the actual result of this race, it is putting us in a much better position to be prepared for Dakar.”

Results

Finish	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time	Margin
1	1	73	Edgar Canet	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	15:41:55	Leader
2	2	1	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	15:42:57	+ 1:02
3	3	9	Ricky Brabec	Monster Energy Honda HRC	15:45:27	+ 3:32
4	4	77	Luciano Benavides	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	15:49:47	+ 7:52
5	6	42	Adrien Van Beveren	Monster Energy Honda HRC	16:05:03	+ 23:08
6	7	68	Tosha Schareina	Monster Energy Honda HRC	16:07:03	+ 25:08
7	8	11	José Ignacio Cornejo	Hero MotoSports	16:16:03	+ 34:08
8	15	15	Lorenzo Santolino*	Sherco TVS Rally Factory	17:03:23	+ 1:21:28
9	22	10	Skyler Howes	ZXMOTO Joyride Factory Rally Team	17:47:29	+ 2:05:34
DNF	DNF	7	Bradley Cox*	Sherco TVS Rally Factory	DNF	N/A

Stage winners

Stage	Overall	Rider	Time
Prologue	1	Daniel Sanders	10:58.4
Stage 1	1	Ricky Brabec	2:39:57
Stage 2	1	Daniel Sanders	3:35:14
Stage 3	1	Luciano Benavides	3:55:36
Stage 4	1	Daniel Sanders	3:14:31
Stage 5	1	Ricky Brabec	1:52:15

Featured image credit: Kin Marcin / Red Bull Content Pool