Profile of ROKAS BACIUSKA - RED BULL CAN-AM FACTORY TEAM

N°400 Car RED BULL CAN-AM FACTORY TEAM

PATRICIA PITA GAGO

MAREK GOCZAL

ROKAS BACIUSKA

(ltu) 1.71m / 69kg

Hobbies

Skiing, traveling

“The young guys are definitely coming!”

After a brilliant career in karting that resulted in a national title, in 2017 Rokas Baciuska switched to rallycross, winning the European Rallycross Super 1600 championship. In 2019 the young Lithuanian moved up to the premier RX Supercars class, with a best result of 4th place at the French round, narrowly missing out on the podium due to a mechanical problem. 2020 should have been the year where everything fell into place but uncompetitive machinery prompted him to throw in the towel and switch to rally-raid, a hugely popular sport back home in Lithuania. On his debut at the Andalucía Rally, he just missed out on a podium finish due to a penalty for changing his tyre in the wrong place. Then last January, having just turned 22, Rokas finished his first Dakar directly on the T4 podium, behind the Monster Energy Can-Am driver Austin Jones. An impressive debut that suggested there was plenty of potential for improvement! And improve he did, finishing second on the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge behind Marek Goczal. Rokas started the Rallye du Maroc with a new co-driver, Oriol Vidal, a former quad rider who switched to SSVs on the 2017 Dakar and has four Dakars under his belt. Together, they won the T4 category, even placing 11th in all the FIA categories combined! A first world championship victory that he backed up with a second place on the Andalucia Rally to win the inaugural FIA Rally-Raid T4 Championship on this first full year of racing in the discipline.

R.B.: “Racing my first Dakar last year after having watched it on the TV ever since I was a kid was an amazing experience and I was super happy to finish 1st Rookie and 3rd overall. After that the world championship was surprisingly trouble free. When we won the Rallye du Maroc we saw we could fight for the championship and to win it in Spain was just fantastic. On the 9th of December I will go to the FIA prize giving with all the other FIA champions – just unbelievable!
Of course, now our goal has to be to win the Dakar. But I’m under no illusions how difficult that’s going to be. On such a long race it is really hard not to make any mistakes and impossible to cover that sort of distance driving at 100%. I don’t want to give too much away but the plan will be to drive 60/70 % the first week, see where I am and then really push if I have to. I have a lot of respect for my rally-raid elders but the young guys are definitely coming!”

Vehicle

RED BULL CAN-AM FACTORY TEAM

CAN-AM MAVERICK XRS TURBO
RED BULL CAN-AM FACTORY TEAM

Mark CAN-AM
Model MAVERICK XRS TURBO
Performance tuner South Racing Can-Am
Assistance South Racing Can-Am
Class T4: Modified Production SSV

Ranking 2023

All news of R. Baciuska

W2RC: Al Attiyah and Loeb deadlocked as Kevin Benavides gains an edge

CARS: Al Attiyah wins, but Loeb comes out ahead Sébastien Loeb is not the type who needs to be told twice. Last year, after his hopes of Dakar victory went up in smoke, the Frenchman went on the hunt for high finishes in specials, which awarded from 5 to 1 points to the top 5 of each stage. His aim was to make up the 10 points separating the winner of the Dakar,...

Dakar 2023: A bumper crop of records

Cars: Quiet aplomb carries the day for Al Attiyah

Scoring 5/20 is usually very bad news, but in the case of Nasser Al Attiyah, who claimed his fifth Bedouin trophy in his twentieth Dakar start (including the 2008 edition, as the bivouac is wont to do), his track record shows that he is one of the most keen-sighted and visionary competitors in the world of rally raids....

Rokas Baciuška: "It ticks me off because it happened on the last day"

It all came crashing down for Rokas Baciuška in the last stage of a rally he had led for days. A mechanical forced him to stop for a long time, enough for Eryk Goczał to snatch the title from him. The Lithuanian finished the 45th Dakar in second place, 16 minutes down on the winner.

"We broke a gimbal and had to stop to fix it... We must have...

Eryk yo-yoing behind Baciuška

Eryk Goczał was over 3 minutes behind Rokas Baciuška at km 68, but the Pole has narrowed the gap to 1′36″. No cause for concern for Baciuška at the moment, but Goczał is not giving up!

Rokas Baciuška: "We survived one more day"

Rattled and under pressure from Eryk Goczał, Rokas Baciuška clings to the lead. The Lithuanian, second in stage 13, lost more than 4 minutes to his opponent on the last dunes but remained in control of the rally.

"It was tough today… The sand was soft and with the sun high in the sky I had trouble reading the terrain. But we survived...

Eryk Goczał leaps closer to Baciuška with stage win

Eryk Goczał clocked the fastest time in the special to pocket his fourth stage win in the 45th Dakar, slashing his deficit to Rokas Baciuška in the general standings by 4′19″ to just over three minutes. Sparks will fly in the final 136 km to Dammam.

Baciuška leads from the front

The overall leader of the SSV category, Rokas Baciuška, is starting the special in first place, followed by one of his rivals for the title, Eryk Goczał. A mere three minutes separate the two men going into today's stage. "With two days more, a lot of things can still happen", pointed out the Lithuanian yesterday. "I would feel better if I was like Nasser,...

Rokas Baciuška: “Just two stages more!”

With second on the day’s stage, between, Michał et Marek Goczał, Rokas Baciuška has increased his lead in the general standings by three minutes over Eryk, the youngest of the Goczał clan, who had to content himself with fourth place on the special.

“Finally, just two stages more! Today there were good dunes, big dunes...