RACE SUMMARY

Hero MotoSports Team Rally, the motorsport team of the world’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles and scooters, Hero MotoCorp, has successfully completed the 48th edition of the Dakar Rally 2026. Team riders Nacho Cornejo and Ross Branch finished the world’s toughest rally inside the overall Top-10, marking a historic milestone for the team and underlining its steady rise in the global rally-raid competition.

Spread across 13 gruelling stages in the vast Arabian desert, Dakar 2026 proved to be a demanding and revealing test for Team Hero. The rally pushed riders, machines, and the entire team to their limits. Through resilience, teamwork, and consistency, Hero MotoSports achieved its first-ever double Top-10 finish at Dakar. While the final results fell short of podium ambitions, the rally delivered valuable championship points, key technical learnings, and strong momentum to the team for the season ahead.

Nacho Cornejo delivered a calm and composed performance throughout the rally to finish 7th overall. The young Chilean showed strong consistency across stages and managed the demanding conditions with control. Close behind, Ross Branch secured an overall 8th place finish, displaying determination as he battled through multiple challenges to reach the finish.

In the final Stage 13, Cornejo and Branch crossed the finish line at 8th and 12th positions respectively, bringing an intense two-week campaign to a successful close. As the opening round of the 2026 FIM World Championship comes to an end, Cornejo and Branch opened their points tally with 14 and 12 points respectively. Tobias, on the other hand, was unable to score any points this time due to his unfortunate exit from the rally.

Hero MotoSports entered Dakar 2026 with a three-rider line-up—Nacho Cornejo and Ross Branch in Rally GP, and Tobias Ebster in the Rally2 category. The campaign began on a strong note, with Branch finishing 5th in the Prologue, and also being the fastest man in Stage 1. However, a six-minute speeding penalty in a controlled zone pushed him down the overall order.

The Runner-up of last year’s Rally2 Championship, Tobias Ebster’s promising campaign came to an unfortunate end on Stage 3 after a crash. He was evacuated to the bivouac, where medical checks confirmed a fractured scaphoid. He is currently recovering back home.

As the rally progressed further, Branch faced setbacks on Stage 5 after a rear tyre issue during the first marathon-refuge stage cost him valuable time. Stage 9 brought another tough test for him, with two heavy crashes damaging the bike, leaving Ross with an injured ankle and bruises all over his body. With no external assistance permitted during the marathon-refuge stage, Branch and Cornejo worked together in the desert bivouac to fix the bike. Branch then rode the repaired bike safely to the finish the following day. Despite numerous challenges, both Hero MotoSports riders stayed within the overall Top-10 throughout the rally, highlighting the team’s consistency, focus, and mental strength.

The Hero 450 Rally once again proved its reliability, completing the entire Dakar without a single technical issue—a strong statement of Hero MotoCorp’s engineering capability on the toughest stage in the world of motorsports.

In its seventh year in Saudi Arabia, Dakar 2026 featured a new route covering nearly 8,000 kilometres, with nearly 5,000 kilometres of timed stages. The rally started and finished in Yanbu, passing through the heart of the country, including Riyadh. Replacing the 48h chrono from the previous editions, this year’s route included two marathon-refuge stages, where riders spent the night in the desert without any mechanical support, completely self-reliant.

A total of 317 vehicles and 564 competitors from 49 nationalities took the start of this year’s rally. The motorcycle category featured 115 riders, including 15 Rally GP and 100 Rally2 entrants, making Dakar 2026 one of the most competitive editions in recent years.