“From being a professional football player to running the RTeam with my father”.

Sport as always been part of Ricky Rickler’s life but as many Italian kids, he moved his first steps in a football playground, showing a great talent since he was very young. His passion turned into a career and Ricky was a professional football player for ten years playing in the Italian premier land second league for teams like Chievo, Bologna, Modena, Piacenza and Mantova. Meantime, in 1987, the same year he was born, his father Renato Rickler found RTeam RalliArt, a team and a workshop dedicated to the preparation of off-road racing cars and to the participation to International Rallies. When Ricky stopped his professional career as a football player, he joined the family business. He started from the workshop, working on the cars, as well as doing races. He made his debut on the Dakar in 2017 driving the assistance truck in the race and he always finished the rallies. He will share the 2020 Dakar adventure with Romanian Buran Dragos Razvan, a passionate about off-road driving who used to travel the world alone till he met Ricky and the R-Team.

“After 10 years as professional football player, in 2015 I joined my father in the family business that was focused on the preparation of off-road racing vehicles. I grew up with rally-raids as my father founded the R-Team in 1987, the year I was born. Off-road has always been my passion. I used to call my mom Ariella with the nickname “Ari Vatanen” when I was a kid. I was following the races in TV and I was a fan of the Peugeot, the Citroen. Then it came the era of the legendary Mitsubishi Evolution and I’m happy to own one of those cars. I’m lucky because at RalliArt I can combine my passion with my work. I did my first Dakar in 2017 and it was great to share this adventure with my father till the finish line. This year I’m tackling my third Dakar Rally and the target is always the same: bringing all the vehicles of the R-Team to the finish line. This year we have done several international races to test the new Mitsubishi cars that will compete in the 2020 Dakar, plus some tests in the Tunisian desert. Before sending the vehicles to Saudi Arabia, we will rebuild all the machines once again to check that everything is fine. This is my job and I’m really happy. My co-driver is a great passionate. He has travelled the world in off-road till he joined our team last year. We got along very well last year. We finished the rally with great satisfaction so we decided to repeat the adventure together this year to assist our crews in the race”.