2026 Rallye du Maroc: Seth Quintero’s consistency key to Ultimate victory

If Nice Nature and Seth Quintero are any proof, third place is not the end of the world and can still be the pathway to greatness.

Quintero never finished higher than third in any of the five stages, but the five stage winners ran into trouble that caused the top spot in the overall to change hands each day. The lead fell into Quintero’s lap on the penultimate day and he kept it out of João Ferreira’s reach.

Ferreira won the first stage, but contracted a fever that meant he wouldn’t be at 100% for the week. A pair of punctures caused him to drop from first to ninth after Stage 2, while Lucas Moraes took the overall lead by 28 seconds over winner Henk Lategan. Moraes then flipped his Dacia in Stage 3 and Lategan finished a disappointing 12th due to a one-minute penalty and several punctures. The shuffle pushed Carlos Sainz to the top, but he couldn’t enjoy it as a navigation error cost him five minutes and sank him to 16th for Stage 4.

While everyone around him fell, Quintero was quietly moving up the ranking. He finished seventh in both Stages 1 and 2, the former after losing time when the jack got stuck while changing a tire whereas the latter came following some mistakes in navigating. A third in Stage 3 moved him up to second overall behind Sainz before taking the lead by finishing sixth.

Entering the final day, he led Toyota comrades Lategan by 2:45 and Ferreira by 5:58. Although Ferreira finished ahead of both of them in second (just 56 seconds behind Eryk Goczał), he could only pass Lategan in the overall. Quintero’s sixth was good to hold off Ferreira by 4:23.

“It feels absolutely amazing to win, and to get back-to-back wins is simply incredible,” said Quintero. He scored his maiden win at the Desafío Ruta 40. “Coming away with the World Championship lead means it’s been a great week. Rallye du Maroc was brutal, but the team worked so hard to give me the car I needed every single day.”

Interestingly, Quintero and Ferreira both recorded 34 points in Morocco. Quintero now leads the standings with 135 points, 14 more than Sébastien Loeb and 20 over Nasser Al-Attiyah, while Ferrerira sits fourth.

The runner-up meant Ferreira came up short in what would’ve been a dream September for him. He arrived in Morocco riding winning the Baja Aragón and Baja TT Sharish Gin in consecutive weeks.

Loeb won Stage 3, but was never in the overall conversation because of an electrical failure on the first day. As if that wasn’t bad enough, a hard landing in Stage 5 broke the front wishbone and his right front wheel off. Martin Macík Jr.’s truck towed his Dacia to the finish.

“The week was tough for the Dacia Sandriders, but we brought three cars home and we did a good job today,” Al-Attiyah commented at the finish. “It was not an easy race but still we have one race left in Abu Dhabi and we’ll try to do our best.”

Dacia’s struggles meant Ford followed the Toyotas with Nani Roma, Mitch Guthrie, and Carlos Sainz sweeping fourth through sixth. Goczał finished eighth with a stage win in his maiden W2RC race with Ford; his father Marek, who celebrated his 51st birthday on Friday, secured the inaugural Master Drivers trophy for those over 50. Mattias Ekström won Stage 4 but had DNF’d the day prior.

Former Dacia driver Cristina Gutiérrez continued her momentum with the Santana 400 T1+ by finishing ninth in the vehicle’s first W2RC start. Gutiérrez had placed fourth overall in her Santana debut at Aragón two weeks prior. The Santana saw gradual progress, starting with a 20th in Stage 1 and cracking the top ten by halfway.

“It makes me even happier to know that it’s the same result I achieved here last year with Dacia,” Gutiérrez remarked. “Coming back after so many months and seeing that the pace is still there means a lot to me. It gives me confidence and makes me even more excited about what’s to come.”

Laia Sanz wasn’t as lucky in the Ebro S800 XRR; like Santana, Ebro is a revived Spanish marque that started a rally program and debuted at Dakar earlier this year with a rebadged Century CR7. A steering pump failure and broken belt torsioner resulted in her being one of 13 retirements in Ultimate, though she was able to continue the rally in the Open class.

Guillaume de Mévius finished as high as fourth in Stage 3 and sat seventh overall going into the last day. As luck would have it, a mechanical issue took him out. Mini teammate Sebastián Halpern struggled as well, which he blamed on the FIA’s start order.

“We are really dissatisfied with the FIA system of placing all priority drivers at the front, regardless of how you performed the previous day,” Halpern opined. “You can never escape the dust that way, and we started behind P40 every single day.”

Even with Toyota’s podium sweep, others didn’t make it home. Yazeed Al-Rajhi suffered a mechanical problem and had to bow out. TGRSA’s Saood Variawa and Guy Botterill crashed out, with Variawa and Overdrive Racing’s Kevin Benavides both rolling after hitting similar ruts. Lucio Álvarez retired after his Hilux burst into flames. Nicolás Cavigliasso’s Toyota debut was marred by vehicle problems in Stage 4.

Alberto Morganti and Francisco Barreto withdrew because of medical issues surrounding the former himself and the latter’s navigator Paulo Fiúza.

Results

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver	Navigator	Team	Class	Total Time	Margin
1	1	203	Seth Quintero	Andrew Short	Toyota Gazoo Racing	T1+	16:34:05	Leader
2	2	240	João Ferreira	Filipe Palmeiro	Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa	T1+	16:38:28	+ 4:23
3	3	202	Henk Lategan	Brett Cummings	Toyota Gazoo Racing	T1+	16:38:47	+ 4:42
4	4	227	Nani Roma	Álex Haro	Ford Racing	T1+	16:41:06	+ 7:01
5	5	228	Mitch Guthrie	Kellon Walch	Ford Racing	T1+	16:42:28	+ 8:23
6	6	225	Carlos Sainz	Daniel Oliveras	Ford Racing	T1+	16:43:30	+ 9:25
7	7	220	Mathieu Serradori	Loïc Minaudier	Century Racing Factory Team	T1+	16:47:58	+ 13:53
8	8	205	Eryk Goczał	Szymon Gospodarczyk	Energylandia Rally Team	T1+	16:52:58	+ 18:53
9	9	212	Cristina Gutiérrez*	Marc Solà	Santana Racing Team	T1+	17:12:19	+ 38:14
10	10	221	Martin Prokop	Viktor Chytka	Orlen Jipocar Team	T1+	17:18:28	+ 44:23
11	11	206	Marek Goczał	Maciej Marton	Energylandia Rally Team	T1+	17:21:11	+ 47:06
12	12	224	Marcos Baumgart	Kleber Cincea	SVR	T1+	17:48:17	+ 1:14:12
13	13	217	Denis Krotov	Konstantin Zhiltsov	M-Sport Rally Raid Team	T1+	17:53:55	+ 1:19:50
14	14	218	Romain Dumas	Anthony Pes	RD Limited	T1+	17:57:04	+ 1:22:59
15	16	210	Hernán Garces	Juan Pablo Latrach	Overdrive Racing	T1+	18:10:14	+ 1:36:09
16	17	299	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Fabian Lurquin	Dacia Sandriders	T1+	18:18:06	+ 1:44:01
17	18	245	Urvo Männama*	Kuldar Sikk	Overdrive Racing	T1+	18:28:54	+ 1:54:49
18	19	230	Kees Koolen	Wouter Rosegaar	RD Limited	T1+	18:31:31	+ 1:57:26
19	22	232	Isidre Esteve	José María Villalobos	Repsol Toyota Rally Team	T1+	18:53:01	+ 2:18:56
20	25	263	Philippe Lambilliotte*	Paul Durame	MD Rallye Sport	T1.2	19:04:29	+ 2:30:24
21	28	241	Włodzimierz Grajek	Jacek Czachor	Grajek Rally Team	T1+	19:35:25	+ 3:01:20
22	30	204	Akira Miura	Armand Monleón	Toyota Gazoo Racing	T1+	19:41:01	+ 3:06:56
23	32	207	Jean-Luc Ceccaldi	Christophe Crespo	MD Rallye Sport	T1.2	19:54:36	+ 3:20:31
24	35	244	Tomasz Baranowski*	Konrad Dudziński	Promenada Rally Team	T1+	20:24:25	+ 3:50:20
25	36	256	Vic Flip*	Stefan Henken	MM Rallye	T1+	20:25:37	+ 3:51:32
26	42	258	Benoît Fretin*	Cédric Duplé	Ydeo Compétition	T1.2	21:28:56	+ 4:54:51
27	45	236	Sebastián Halpern*	Edu Pulenta	X-raid Team	T1+	22:02:47	+ 5:28:42
28	52	260	José María Cami*	Cristian Cami	MD Rallye Sport	T1.2	23:57:53	+ 7:23:48
29	55	255	Markus Walcher*	Stephan Stensky	Walcher Racing Team	T1.1	25:34:09	+ 9:00:04
30	57	242	Gintas Petrus*	Álvaro de Haro	Petrus Racing	T1+	28:41:24	+ 12:07:19
31	59	223	Lucas Moraes	Pablo Moreno	Dacia Sandriders	T1+	30:36:52	+ 14:02:47
32	60	222	Guillaume de Mévius	Mathieu Baumel	X-raid Team	T1+	31:27:33	+ 14:53:28
33	61	238	Dania Akeel	Sébastien Delaunay	Overdrive Racing	T1+	32:04:13	+ 15:30:08
34	63	226	Mattias Ekström	Emil Bergkvist	Ford Racing	T1+	36:43:51	+ 20:09:46
35	65	219	Sébastien Loeb	Édouard Boulanger	Dacia Sandriders	T1+	38:13:24	+ 21:39:19
36	66	233	Nicolás Cavigliasso*	Valentina Pertegarini	SVR	T1+	38:20:42	+ 21:46:37
37	67	208	Lionel Baud	Lucie Baud	Serradori Racing Team	T1+	39:04:54	+ 22:30:49
38	69	248	Mike van Eikeren*	Jasper Riezebos	MP Rallysport	T1+	39:45:36	+ 23:11:31
39	70	239	Rik van den Brink*	Gydo Heimans	Serradori Racing Team	T1+	40:25:41	+ 23:51:36
40	74	253	Gert-Jan van der Valk*	Branco de Lange	MP Rallysport	T1+	42:26:53	+ 25:52:48
41	77	249	David Beecroft*	Fraser Parish	Red-Lined Europe	T1+	44:20:54	+ 27:46:49
42	82	265	Nathan Hayashi*	Shane Hairsine	The Gear Shop Technical Motorsport Team	ULTS	66:43:17	+ 50:09:12
DNF	DNF	201	Yazeed Al-Rajhi	Timo Gottschalk	Overdrive Racing	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	214	Laia Sanz ^	Maurizio Gerini	Ebro Audax Motorsport	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	215	Saood Variawa	Charan Moore	Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	216	Guy Botterill	Henry Köhne	Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	231	Lucio Álvarez	Bernardo Graue	SVR	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	234	Mark Mustermann	Michael Zajc	MM Rallye	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	235	Francisco Barreto*	Paulo Fiúza	SVR	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	246	Daniel Beecroft*	Phillip Gillespie	Red-Lined Europe	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	247	Włodzimierz Grajek	Jacek Czachor	Grajek Rally Team	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	250	Rients Hofstra*	Wouter de Graaff	Red-Lined Europe	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	262	Maurice Benoît*	Yannick Collongues	Objectif Dunes	T1.2	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	264	Alberto Morganti*	Massimiliano Catarsi	R Team	T1.2	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	269	Jourdan Serderidis	Lucas Cruz	M-Sport Rally Raid Team	T1+	DNF	N/A