Antonio “Tony” Cairoli is one of the greatest to do it in the FIM Motocross World Championship, winning seven titles at the highest level. While he’d love to do the Dakar Rally someday, however, that won’t be on two wheels.

“Dakar is something really special because of everything that involves the race, that is around the race, like a landscape situation that appears during the the race days, long stages, and whatever you can find around,” Cairoli said at EICMA. “It’s something special and that’s why we all like it.

“There is always in my head the possibility to one day take part of the race. Of course, in my career I’ve been quite busy with the World Championship seasons that were not matching so well with the preparations of one possible Dakar. But now, I am a little bit more free and yeah, why not? Maybe we can think about it.”

Cairoli has nine FIM Motocross titles to his name. After starring in MX2 with championships in 2005 and 2007, he five-peated the MX1 class to close out that era from 2009 to 2013. A sixth consecutive title came in the first year of MXGP in 2014, followed by a seventh crown in 2018.

He retired at the end of 2021 before becoming an ambassador for Ducati’s new motocross division in 2024. Since then, Cairoli’s occasionally competed in AMA Pro Motocross on the Desmo450 MX.

With Tiziano Internó set to run the 2027 Dakar on the new Ducati Desmo450 EDS Rally, one might think Cairoli would do the same in the future. However, that’s not the case at all.

“My goal is to do it with four wheels, not with the bike because of many reasons,” he explained. “I’m more comfortable doing it on four wheels especiall because I’ve never done a proper rally in my career. It would be interesting, I think, because it’s so wild.”

Featured image credit: Stefano Taglioni / Red Bull Content Pool