“Good things come in threes”
En resumen
L.T.
- Fate naturally led Lorenzo Traglio to the Dakar, following the tracks laid by his father Maurizio, who prepared vehicles in the 1980s, participated himself and went on to take over the iconic team Tecnosport.
- Lorenzo’s first participation, in 2022, happened “a bit by chance”, as he says - his father Maurizio tested positive for Covid at the last moment and the son took over.
- With much more time to prepare for the 2024 and 2025 editions of the Dakar Classic, Lorenzo Traglio drove his Nissan Pathfinder to the second place of the overall standings. And he also finished 2nd in the two Baja events he tackled in 2025, in Greece and Romania.
- To break the spell and put the Traglio name on top of the standings, Lorenzo Traglio returns to Saudi Arabia with Rudy Briani, a staple of Tecnosport, and the pairing jump aboard a new car, a Nissan Patrol refurbished to carry them to victory.
- Rudy Briani is a special figure in the world of Dakar, one whose experience and honesty attracts many contenders who turn to him to know how to prepare for such an adventure.
- Briani’s first participation was in 2001, with Riccardo Garosci, who also accompanied him when he returned to the Dakar, in 2023. He was a navigator with the likes of Bruno Saby and Miki Biaison too. “The Dakar has brought me extreme emotions”, he reflects.
- He is now a staple of Tecnosport, historically associated with Nissan and now run by Maurizio Traglio, father of Lorenzo and a longtime friend of Rudy Briani’s. This year, he’s been essential to put together the female crew made of Rachele Somaschini, Serena Rodella and Monica Buonamano aboard a truck.
- After coming second in 2024 and 2025, Briani and Traglio aim for victory in 2026. It would the perfect celebration to Briani’s tenth participation in the Dakar, the fourth in the Classic.
Ambición
L.T.: “We're coming with the same intentions as last year, the same as the year before. That is, maximum competitiveness, super focus on the goal, which is first of all to finish and then also to achieve a result. But there's always uncertainty because the Dakar is long, because the car suffers… Everyone suffers.
Last year was the best we could do. So maybe a little more luck is needed, because luck definitely plays a role, and the winners, Santaolalla and his navigator Rosa, are great competitors. It will be my third Dakar with Rudy and they say good things come in threes…
Personally, I mostly find dunes difficult to engineer. They scare me, Rudy knows this well. But it's a limitation that you have to overcome and every time I participate it's always a great thrill. I really have to thank my father for the spirit he passed on to me and for this passion that I have developed. That passing on this passion is not something to be taken for granted.
For me, the Patrol has always been a benchmark car because my father raced it for many years, he developed it with the team, so it has always been a bit of a goal to be able to race with a Patrol. We at Tecnosport have built so many, so I'm very positive about this car. It's a dream come true, so to speak, to race with a car that has made so much history.”
R.B.: “We have a very, very good relationship with Lorenzo. He is one of the very few pilots with whom we have always managed to find the right feeling. We have never had any major problems or misunderstandings. Of course, there are moments of tension during the 15 days of racing, but they have been very few and far between, and we have used them to build and improve our relationship. There is mutual respect, there is mutual understanding, and when you have that, everything works very well.
On paper, we can win. Last year, we were always in the lead in the first week. Let's say we made two mistakes, small ones, not big ones, but in a very close race with Santaolalla, who is very good, together with Jan Rosa, that caused us to lose the lead. They didn't make any more mistakes, neither did we, but the gap had opened up and we couldn't catch up.
This year, we can see changes in the regulations that will increase the difficulty. So it also makes it harder to do well, of course. But it's good, it makes for a bigger challenge and the only thing we can do is prepare as best as we can. It will be my tenth time in the Dakar, and the fourth in Saudi Arabia, so it's also a bit of a special milestone and it would be perfect if I could achieve the best result. We'll try, but it won't be that easy.
You're never ready for the Dakar. In the end, you can do 100 of them, but there are so many unexpected events that it's almost impossible to say you know everything. Surely having done the Dakar Classic four times in Saudi Arabia, helps. We know more or less what the temperatures are like, where the most delicate points are, what the terrain is like. But we can't say that we know everything.”
