“My goal is the same: the top five”

Lorenzo Santolino is already among the Dakar's best. The 2024 Dakar is his sixth participation. He finished the last three editions at the sharp end of the order, with sixth place in 2021, 11th in 2022 and back in the top 10 in 2023 with a ninth-place finish. In 2021, he achieved the goal that the world's most demanding rally raid had denied him in his first two participations. After a very complicated year due to the health crisis and the death of his mother due to illness, the Guijuelo native dedicated his first finish and a brilliant sixth-place result, the best among the Spanish two-wheel contingent, to his mother. In what was a very emotional edition, the Sherco rider auctioned off his race kit to help the Salamanaca-based association Pyfano, which aids cancer-stricken children. In 2022, the Spaniard was always among the best with great consistency, but technical problems forced him to change his engine, which relegated him to 11th place. Lorenzo once again displayed tremendous pace on the 2023 Dakar, especially on the roughest terrain, always in the top 10. As a precaution, he changed his engine on stage 10, resulting in a 15-minute penalty. The Top-10 could have been a tall order, but Lorenzo did not stop believing and kept pushing with perseverance and a steady pace. When the dust settled, he finished ninth in the classification, his second-best result. Looking ahead to the 2024 Dakar, he focused on improving the reliability of his bike. His goal is to finish in the top 5.

L.S.: “This year, along with the team, we decided not to do all the FIM World Rally Raid Championship (W2RC) events and use that budget to develop the bike and test. We did smaller races, and in the end, we did the Morocco Rally. We had time to do some testing in the summer in Morocco to develop things on the bike. I think it was positive. We have taken a step forward. In fact, in the Morocco Rally, I was consistently in the leading group, especially in the first sections of the stage”.
“We have improved the bike's handling and stability. And basically, we have also improved engine reliability without looking for more performance. We have also worked on the suspension and geometry of the bike to improve the overall handling. The objective is still to finish in the top five. It's getting increasingly more difficult to get into the top 5, with more riders fighting at the top, but if we have a good two weeks, I think we can do it”.