Toyota duo Henk Lategan and Lucas Moraes are chasing the W2RC crown of Dacia's Nasser al-Attiyah
Photography by Red Bull
Words by David Evans, DirtFish Head of Media
This year’s World Rally-Raid Championship will come to a thrilling conclusion in Morocco this week, as Toyota drivers Henk Lategan and Lucas Moraes look to dethrone Dacia’s so-far unbeaten series leader Nasser al-Attiyah.
Since the inception of the W2RC series, the Qatari driver has all three titles. He arrives at Sunday’s start of Rallye du Maroc holding a nine-point lead over Lategan, with winner of the previous round in Portugal Moraes one point further back.
Al-Attiyah remains undaunted by the tight fight.
“Last year,” he said, “was very close but we won the championship. I will work very hard and the team will work very hard to achieve this again. The good thing is between all of us, there is a good spirit, and we can help each other as crews. I hope Morocco can be good for us, I have a lot of experience from doing the rally many times. I will do my best to win and take the title.”
Rally-Raid Portugal concluded with Moraes admitting he’d disobeyed a team order to win his maiden W2RC round, depriving team-mate Lategan of what could be crucial points at next week’s final round.
That’s not how the head of Toyota’s W2RC team Bart Eelen sees it.
“It was not a team order,” Eelen told DirtFish, “because, honestly speaking, I don’t think in this sport it’s really possible to give team orders. The drivers are out there for hundreds of kilometers and, contrary to many other disciplines in motorsport, they do really need to work together. There’s always a team strategy, because very often one of the cars will get into trouble, even if it’s a flat tire and the two flat tires are already used, they’ll need a tire from the other car.
“Here, it is really much more a team sport than other disciplines are and I think that’s important to remember. We had a conversation with the drivers and we had expressed our hope that Henk would be able to close in on Nasser. At the same time, I also understand for Lucas it was his first opportunity to win a W2RC race. And as a racing driver, I think everybody understands exactly how he was in his head when he took the decision that he took.
“I don’t think it has damaged the relationship. I don’t know whether you saw the footage [from the finish in Portugal], but when he arrived on the finish line, Henk was already there. I think Henk was, if he wasn’t the first, he was probably the second guy to congratulate Lucas on the win. I don’t think it has caused any damage going into Morocco. Because for us, of course, and I think for everybody, the positive side is that the fight is still very much on in Morocco.
“Like I said, if things would have happened the way we had hoped for Henk, he would have been closer to Nasser but on the other hand, we now have two cars which are within reach and anything can happen. It’s very easy to have a flat tire and to lose a couple of minutes. But to have two cars in the mix in Morocco is not a bad thing.”
Al-Attiyah holds a nine-point lead over Lategan, with Moraes a further point adrift
But still, one of those two cars has to do something which has never been done before – beat Al-Attiyah to the W2RC title.
Eelen smiled: “We know from our experience of working with Nasser, he’s not an easy guy to beat. But he’s not unbeatable. He’s very strong and one of his strengths is probably he has a particularly good eye to read the terrain, which is very important in this sport. And, obviously, he’s fast.
“How do you beat him? Henk and Lucas both have proven already they are fully competitive towards Nasser. And then the other element which plays an important role of course is the car itself. I think that Dacia is fast, it’s quite agile, especially in the dunes.
“We’ve seen in Portugal that they’ve struggled a bit with reliability. Nobody knows whether that will be the case in Morocco. And I mean, you don’t have to be presumptuous… we can also have problems with reliability. In Portugal, we had a couple of issues. Luckily, most of them were on the same car – which was sad for Seth [Quintero] because he was flying, but it helped the guys fighting for the championship.”
Starting from the city of Fez with Sunday’s 11-mile prologue stage, the crews then head south towards Erfoud in the Sahara Desert. By the time the crews reach the finish on Friday October 17, they will have tackled more than 900 miles competitively.
Words:David Evans
Tags: Henk Lategan, Lucas Moraes, Nasser Al-Attiyah, Rallye du Maroc, W2RC, W2RC 2025
Publish Date October 11, 2025 DirtFish
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