Ali Oubassidi had enough fun smacking the hell out of the Rallye du Maroc’s Open class, so he decided to try something new for 2026. In fact, even the RdM was trying something new for 2026.

For the first edition under its oversight, organizer Pro Dunes introduced the Rallye du Maroc Classic. It follows the same rules as the Dakar Classic, and there’s even a mini championship for vintage raiders doing Morocco and the 2027 Dakar.

While his forte is in traditional rallies where the fastest time wins, Oubassidi is no stranger to regularity. He’s done the RallyClassics Africa in his Can-Am Maverick X3, finishing fifth in SSV at the 2025 race. His Desert Drive Academy also offers dune training for those heading to the Dakar Rally or Dakar Classic.

For the RdM Classic, he traded in his Can-Am for a Toyota Land Cruiser HZJ78 from Compagnie Saharienne. The team is a close partner of the ASO and previously provided a fleet of Land Cruisers to the organization for Dakar, which were then converted for competition use. Two more HZJ78s were also fielded for Frédéric Fatien and Stéphane Jaillant.

Lucas Delmas-Marsalet, the team manager whose father Arnaud founded Compagnie Saharienne, served as Oubassidi’s navigator.

“Basically, we are driving parallel tracks from the FIA race, but same landscape and same rally-raid spirit,” Delmas-Marsalet told Cross-Country Rally News after Stage 2. “[…] This car is doing the Dakar with us. We rent the cars as part of an arrive-and-drive package, so the testing is going great.”

Unlike the FIA categories, the Classic took part in the Prologue alongside the bikes, though the results were solely to set the starting lineup for Stage 1.

Tecnosport looked like the top team early on as the Nissan Patrol GR Y60s of Filippo “Filo” Colnaghi and Taz Harvey finished first and second, the latter tying with the Gulf-sponsored Porsche 964 of Pierre-Louis Berrier. Oubassidi turned in a more modest eighth-place run with 56 points.

As the stages began to matter, it looked like a battle between Porsche and Nissan. Harvey was nearly perfect in Stage 1 with just a single point “earned”: he accumulated nine and seven points across the two Regularity Tests, then had 15 points deducted after impressing in the Navigation Test. Colnaghi was third with Juan Morera’s 911 sandwiched between the Patrols, while Oubassidi cracked the top five in fifth.

However, Oubassidi easily won Stage 2 with 35 points to Harvey’s 91. He racked up the third fewest points on DT 2-1, then was among five drivers who were perfect through the Dune Test (alongside Berrier, Colnaghi, Jaillant, and Morera), followed by smashing NT 2-3 and tying for fourth in RT 2-4.

Although Stage 2 was his only victory, outright or in the H2 class, Oubassidi would never relinquish the overall lead from there. He narrowly lost Stage 3 to Colnaghi by seven points, was sixth in Stage 4 with 104 points, and recorded another runner-up behind Colnaghi on the last day.

Despite the three overall stage wins, Colnaghi had to climb his way out from his rut in Stage 2. While sixth place wasn’t a bad showing, he accumulated 283 points with a particularly poor performance in NT 2-3 doing much of the damage (248 points there). It was his only day with triple-digit points, but resulted in too big of a hole for him to overcome.

Axel Berrier ended up scoring the only Porsche overall stage win. While he took third in H2, he was hampered by a clutch issue.

Four cars retired. W2RC regular Claude Fournier decided to try out the Classic in a Porsche Cayenne, but withdrew in Stage 2 due to a health emergency. Fernando Blanco’s G-Wagen and Ludovic Bois’ Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution hit the time limit in Stage 3, with the former exiting entirely whereas the latter was able to continue. Harvey bowed out on Stage 4 with a mechanical.

Purdey, the 1988 Land Rover 110 piloted by 2026 Dakar Classic competitor Helen Tait-Wright, rolled down a dune in Stage 3. With oil leaking out while the car was on its side, the crankshaft seized up while the engine became hydrolocked from said oil. A Toyota came by to help only to get stuck itself.

“I was sitting in the car, ready to go as I’ve got some traction to reverse off. The next thing I know, I’m lying on my face, on the window, cars on its side,” Tait-Wright recalled. Items from the passenger’s side of the car like pencils and sand also fell onto her.

“We called the organization. The guys were so apologetic, they just kept saying sorry, but it’s just one of those things.”

Her navigator Marcella Kirk eventually switched to Luis Antonio Pires’ Land Cruiser for the rest of the race after Marcos Vilariño had to leave for a personal matter. This allowed Pires to continue and ultimately complete the race.

Even H4 winner Paolo Fellin nearly landed on the DNF list because he was over an hour late to the start of RT 5-2.

Luis Robles had so much going against him that it’s almost a miracle he didn’t join the victims. He was written down as a retirement in Stage 2 for being late to NT 2-3, which he asserted was because he was in the dunes helping drivers like Tait-Wright. While Fatien said the same and got time removed, Robles didn’t because he never activated his Iritrack to signal why he was stopped. The day after that, Robles was given the wrong itinerary to return to the bivouac after the stage was neutralized. On the final day, he received another tardiness penalty for aiding Morera, though this was fortunately dropped.

Robles and 2022 Dakar Classic winner Serge Mogno were among those tasked with being rapid assistance vehicles for their respective teams. The latter’s race started inauspiciously when his navigator Anis Meftah was under investigation for having an FFSA (Fédération Française du Sport Automobile) license that didn’t permit competing in rallies with a speed limit over 50 km/h on public roads. They did the Prologue before Meftah eventually got the proper document to continue the rally.

Results

H2

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver	Navigator	Team	Class	Points	Margin
1	1	832	Ali Oubassidi	Lucas Delmas-Marsalet	Compagnie Saharienne	H2.B	236	Leader
2	2	827	Filippo Colnaghi	Daniele Bottallo	Tecnosport	H2.A	397	+ 161
3	4	826	Axel Berrier	Jérémy Athimon	Nantes Prestige Autos	H2.A	462	+ 226
4	5	824	Stéphane Jaillant	Hugo Jaillant	Compagnie Saharienne	H2.B	837	+ 601
5	7	818	Frédéric Fatien	Jean-Luc Roinet	Compagnie Saharienne	H2.B	992	+ 756
6	8	830	Pierre-Louis Berrier	Syndiely Wade	Nantes Prestige Autos	H2.A	1,453	+ 1,217
7	11	800	Juan Morera	Lidia Ruba	Momabikes Raid Team Nantes Prestige Autos	H2.A	4,257	+ 4,021
8	13	831	Serge Mogno	Anis Meftah	Nantes Prestige Autos	H2.A	7,895	+ 7,650
9	14	817	Luis Robles	Enrique Mayor	500 Miles	H2.A	8,000	+ 7,764
DNF	DNF	804	Taz Harvey	Rocco Sbaraglia	Tecnosport	H2.B	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	821	Fernando Blanco	Marino San Jose	500 Miles	H2.A	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	810	Helen Tait-Wright	Marcella Kirk	Gazelles Offroad Team	H2.A	DNF	N/A

H3

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver	Navigator	Team	Class	Points	Margin
1	3	802	Josef Unterholzner	Franco Gaioni	R Team	H3.A	461	Leader
2	6	809	Lorenzo Fluxá	Sergi Fernández	LJS Racing	H3.B	871	+ 410
3	12	822	Nicolo Mussetto	Vincenzo Mussetto	R Team	H3.A	5,580	+ 5,189
4	16	819	Ludovic Bois	Julia Colman	R Team	H3.B	12,544	+ 12,083
DNF	DNF	815	Claude Fournier	Miquel Amblàs	BE Racing	H3.B	DNF	N/A

H4

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver	Navigator	Team	Class	Points	Margin
1	9	814	Paolo Fellin	Daniele Manoni	R Team	H4.A	3,786	Leader
2	13	805	Davide Facchini	Gianluca Sbaraglia	R Team	H4.A	4,208	+ 422
3	14	811	Javier Vélez	Gastón Mattarucco	BE Racing	H4.B	8,448	+ 4,664
4	15	808	Luis Antonio Pires	Marcos Vilariño Marcella Kirk*	LJS Racing	H4.B	13,373	+ 9,587

Stage winners

Stage	Overall	H2 H3 H4	Points
Prologue	1 4 8	Filippo Colnaghi Lorenzo Fluxá Davide Facchini	14 19 53
Stage 1	1 4 12	Taz Harvey Josef Unterholzner David Facchini	1 20 129
Stage 2	1 5 3	Ali Oubassidi Josef Unterholzner Davide Facchini	35 203 120
Stage 3	1 3 5	Filippo Colnaghi Josef Unterholzner Davide Facchini	27 35 52
Stage 4	1 2 11	Axel Berrier Lorenzo Fluxá Paolo Fellin	39 52 598
Stage 5	1 5 9	Filippo Colnaghi Josef Unterholzner Davide Facchini	20 119 227

Featured image credit: Compagnie Saharienne