Cross-Country Rallying

Syndiely Wade

Specialist drivers who have competed in rally raids across the globe. Those who are better-known as stage rally drivers or circuit racers are listed in their respective sections. The best-known female rally-raid exponents, Jutta Kleinschmidt, Isabelle Patissier, Martyna Wojciechowska, Monique Delannoy, Estelle Hallyday, Sara Price and Andrea Mayer, have their own profiles.

Dania Akeel - winner of the T3 championship in the 2021 FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Bajas. Her car was a Mamba SSV. She competed in her first Dakar in 2022, driving a Can-Am Maverick SSV and finishing eighth in the Light Prototype class. Her second Dakar, at the beginning of 2023, ended with 93rd place, driving another Can-Am. She was invited to enter the Dakar by the Saudi Ministry of Sport, which is keen to use female drivers to promote the country. After problems early on, she was 28th in the 2023 Dakar. In 2024, she joined the Extreme E grid, driving for JBXE with Andreas Bakkerud. Previously, she raced motorcycles on circuits.

Mashael Alobaidan - Saudi driver who entered her first Dakar in 2022, driving a Can-Am Maverick in the Light Prototype class. She was 17th in class. Along with Dania Akeel, she is supported by the Saudi Ministry of Sport in order to promote the country via female drivers. Although she had been involved in other sports, including diving, and also driven recreationally in the sand dunes, she only started rallying in 2021, entering Baja events in Sharqiyah, Aragon and H’all. She did the Dakar again in 2023, finishing 83rd in a Can-Am light prototype. She was due to enter again in 2024, but pulled out for unexplained reasons.

Madalena Antas (Cupertino de Miranda)  – competed in rally raids, often for the Nissan Dessoude team. She drove a Pathfinder pick-up for the team in the 2007 Dakar, the last to be held in Africa, but did not finish. This was her third attempt at the Dakar for Nissan. In 2005, she was 17^th in the Baja Espana Aragon, driving a Toyota Landcruiser. Early in her career, she also won the Portuguese off-road championships. Madalena is following in the footsteps of her mother, Teresa, another Dakar competitor.

Victoria Carrasco - Chilean driver. She has competed in off-road rallies in South America from 2004, using a Kia Sorrento. She was eleventh in the 2006 Por las Pampas Rally, her only Cross-Country World Cup outing. Now, she is more commonly seen as a navigator to Juan Francisco Carrasco, in rally raids and stage rallies.

Hend Chaouch - one of Tunisia’s foremost drivers. She has driven in the Rally Tunisia fourteen times, as driver and navigator. Her first time in the driving seat was 2001, when she finished the Tunisian, Moroccan, Dubai and Paris-Dakar raids. Her best finish was 17th with a class win in Dubai. These have been her best results, although she has won several honours for being the first Tunisian, African or female finisher. She has taken part in the Dakar twice. As well as the Cross-Country World Cup, she has competed in women-only rallies, and was third in the 1994 Rallye des Gazelles. She has also organised rallies in Tunisia and worked in assistance teams. Her cars have been a Toyota Landcruiser, Mitsubishi Evolution and Nissan Patrol. She was banned from competition for 2010, after an incident on the 2009 Tunisia Rally. In 2011, she returned to the Rally Tunisia in a Toyota. After this, she does not appear to have competed, and her website has been taken down. In 2013, she spoke out publicly in support of Saudi women being permitted to drive, alongside Ari Vatanen. In 2014, she returned to desert rally raids, and won the Ladies' award on the Rallye du Maroc. Her car was a Toyota HDJ80. She planned to enter the Rally of Tunisia again in 2015, but did not make the start. In 2017, she was second in the Rallye El Chott, driving a Toyota, an event she won in 2018.

Martine de Cortanze - Frenchwoman who raced both cars and bikes in long-distance events. She entered the first Dakar in 1979 on a motorcycle, and entered every race until 1983. She also had a considerable career in stage rallying, winning ladies’ awards in the Monte Carlo and Corsica rallies, among others. She also took part in the Paris-St. Raphaël Rally at least once, in the 1970s.

Sylviane Goutaland – French veteran of many Paris-Dakar rallies, beginning in 1980, when she entered in a Lada Niva, up to 2007. Her vehicles have included a Toyota Landcruiser and a Nissan Patrol. She has usually finished, but not been among the top drivers. As well as the Dakar, she competed in other raid-type events around the world, but not always successfully or happily. She has kept a low media profile since 1994, when she was involved in a fatal accident in Australia.

Pascale Geurie - one of the first women to enter the Paris-Dakar rally, in 1979. She was contesting the motorcycle class. She also drove a Range Rover in the 1982 event, but did not finish. On the track, she attempted to qualify for Le Mans as well, driving a Lola with Martine Renier and Anna Cambiaghi in 1978. Prior to this, she had raced on the French circuits, in touring cars.

Elisabete Jacinto - began her career as an international motocross rider, before moving up to rally raids and the Dakar, She was the highest-placed female motorcyclist in 2000. In 2003, she got her licence to drive trucks and began entering rally raids in this class. She did her first four-wheeled Dakar that year. Since then, she has won the Truck class of the 2006 Shamrock Rally and the 2007 Morocco Rally. On the 2007 Dakar, she was 21st overall and sixth in the Truck class, her best finish. Since then, she has really upper her game to become one of the leading drivers in the Truck class. In 2010, she won the Tunisian and Moroccan rallies. Returning to those events in 2011 gave her another win, and a third place, as well as a second overall in the Rally Africa Eco Race. 2012 was not quite as fruitful, with a fourth overall (second truck) in the Rally Africa Eco Race, and a third in the Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles, in a VW Amarok. Late in the season, she was third in the truck class of the Rally Morocco. Driving a MAN truck in 2013, she won the truck class of the Rally of Morocco and came second in the Baja Aragon and Africa Eco Race. In the MANTGS, she was seventh overall in the 2014 Africa Eco Race, and third in the Truck class. Later, she was tenth overall in the Rally of Morocco, and fourth truck. In between, she drove the Amarok again in the Rallye des Gazelles, and was second. In 2015, she drove a MAN truck for the Oleoban team. She was fourth in the Africa Eco Race, and took part in the Morocco Rally. For Volkswagen, she was sixth in the Rallye des Gazelles. She entered the Africa Eco Race again in 2016, and was fourteenth overall, and third in class, in the MAN. Driving a VW Amarok, she was fifth in the Gazelles event. She also participated in the Libya Rally, but did not finish. In 2017, she was back in the MAN truck, run by the Bio-Ritmo team. She was third in the Truck class of the Morocco Desert Challenge, but did not finish the Rallye du Maroc. The truck got stuck in a sand dune and it took 14 hours to get it out. Bio-Ritmo concentrated on alternative-fuel events in 2018; Elisabete did not finish the Africa Eco Race and was seventh in class in the Morocco Desert Challenge. She was second in the 2019 Africa Eco Race, driving a MAN truck.

Véronique Jacquot (Muringer) – took part in rally raids in a truck in the mid-2000s. She was 29^th in the 2004 Dakar, as part of an all-female team in a MAN truck. Her team-mates were Geraldine Brucy and Uta Baier. She first entered the Dakar in 2003. In 2004, she also became the first driver to enter the Rallye des Gazelles in an HGV, a Mercedes Unimog. She first competed in the Rallye des Gazelles in 2002.

Camelia Liparoti - Italian off-road rally driver who has competed on two and four wheels. She won her first event on a motorcycle in 2007, winning the all-female Trophee Roses de Sables. She went on to win the women’s world off-road title six times between 2009 and 2014. She has entered the Dakar every year since 2009; nine times on a quad and three times in an SSV. She was fifth in the SSV class in 2017 and has won stages in the class. Since 2016, she has raced extensively in Middle Eastern rally raids. Her best year was 2017, when she scored third places in the Quad class in Dubai, Qatar and Abu Dhabi. In 2022, she entered the Dakar again in the Light Prototype category, finishing sixth in a Yamaha X-Raid. In a similar vehicle, she entered the 2023 Dakar, but problems dropped her to 11th place. The following year, she drove an experimental Avid UTV in the Dakar Future Mission 1000 which ran alongside part of the 2024 Dakar. She did not start racing until she was in her thirties.

Merce Marti - record-breaking pilot who entered her first Dakar in 2022. She drove a Can-Am Maverick in the Light Prototype class as part of an all-female team, with co-driver Margot Llobera and women mechanics and engineers. Her car suffered problems and she was only 33rd overall. She tried again in 2023 but did not finish. Her previous motorsport experience was in historics, racing a Porsche and a Ferrari. Her first off-road event was the 1995 Paris-St Raphael Off Road Rally in a Jeep Cherokee, an all-female rally.

Christine Martin – French driver who drove in rally raids in the early 1980s. She raced motorcycles in rally raids for much longer, and was one of the first women to finish the Dakar on a motorcycle. In 1984, she entered the four-wheeled Dakar, and drove a Lada Niva. She did not finish. Unfortunately, the following year, she scored another DNF in the Dakar, this time driving a Peugeot 504 Dangel. She does not appear to have rallied again after this.

Guo Meiling – Chinese driver who entered the Dakar in 2016, driving a Mini. Unfortunately, she was injured in a crash during the prologue, when her car left the road and hit spectators. Previously, she had driven the car in rally raids in China, finishing 22^nd in the 2015 Taklimakan Rally, and 21^st in the 2014 Grand China Rally. Her start in rallying came through competing on a quad in Chinese raids.

Carole Montillet (Carles) – former Olympic skiing champion who turned to motorsport after her retirement. Initially, she concentrated on rally raids, and won the Quad class of the Rally Aïcha des Gazelles in 2004 and 2005. Her partner was Mélanie Suchet. In 2006 and 2007, she was second in the Car class. She then moved into mixed competition, in the French Tout-Terrain championship, and the Transafrican Rally. She was sixth in the Transafrican event in 2006. In 2007, she took part in her first Dakar Rally, driving a Nissan, but could not finish, due to problems with the car’s electronics. Later, in 2011, she returned to the Rallye des Gazelles, in a Springbok prototype with Syndiely Wade, and won the event outright, a feat she repeated in 2012, navigated by Julie Verdaguer in a Jugand Buggy. In between, she tried circuit racing, in the form of the Racecar stock car championship in France, in 2010. She did four races, and was 24^th overall. In 2015, she won the expert category of the Rally Aïcha des Gazelles, driving a Toyota. 

(Maria) Céu Pires de Lima – Portuguese driver who competes in rally raids in Europe and further afield. She drove a Toyota with Pedro Silva Nunes in the 2006 Dakar, and finished in 66^th place. At the time, she was 58 years old. This was her second attempt at the Dakar, having entered, but not finished, in 1997. In her home country, she has won multiple Ladies’ titles in off-road rallying, as well as class wins, in the 1990s and 2000s. She has occasionally been co-driven by Teresa Cupertino de Miranda, her cousin and the mother of Madalena Antas. The two rallied together in the 2011 Baja Portugal. She has often driven Toyotas, but also used a Nissan Navarra for the 2004 Baja Portugal.

Yara Shalaby – Egyptian driver who competes in cross-country rallies. She has raced both cars and motorcycles, but now concentrates on four wheels. In 2014, she entered the Pharaons Rally, in a Toyota Landcruiser. In 2015, she drove in a series of local raid events, including the El- Remal Desert Challenge and the El-Gouna Rally (on a motorcycle), where she had an accident and injured herself. She is not from a motorsport background, and initially struggled to prepare her car to the correct scrutineering standards, and to find a reliable navigator who would not get the team lost.  At the end of 2015, she vied for a funded place in the 2016 Sealine Desert Rally Challenge, through the FIA’s Women In Motorsport event in Qatar. She was not one of the winners. In 2016, she competed in the Al-Remal Challenge, as well as setting a record for kayaking, and founding the Gazelle Rally Team, and all-female, all-Egyptian rally raid team. She drove in the 2018 Fujairah Rally in the UAE but did not finish in her Nissan Pathfinder. In 2019, she entered the Sharjah Rally in the same vehicle, but again did not finish.

Amanda Sorensen - competed in drifting for several seasons before being signed up for the Extreme E championship in 2023. She joined the GMC Hummer EV Chip Ganassi team alongside RJ Anderson, another American driver. They scored third places in Scotland and Sardinia during their first season, qualifying on pole in Scotland. In drifting, Amanda drove a BMW M3 E46 and got as far as the Drift2 class in Formula Drift. She also did some off-roading as a teenager, plus karting and figure skating.

Tatiana Sycheva - Russian driver who entered her first Dakar in 2022. She drove a Can-Am Maverick in the Light Prototype class and finished 30th in the category after a slow couple of final stages. She is the first Russian woman to tackle the event in a car. Previously, she did rally raids in Russia and its surrounding countries, finishing eighth in the 2020 Baja Russia. She has also done the Silk Way Rally at least twice, in 2019 and 2021, in the same car.

Makiko Tomokawa – competed in rally raids in the 1990s and early 2000s, usually in a Mitsubishi. Frustratingly little information about her career is readily available, but she appears to have driven in the Dakar from at least 1995, using a Mitsubishi T1 that year, and other Mitsubishi models in subsequent additions. In 2000, she is described as a “veteran”, alongside her regular co-driver, Akemi Asada.

Luisa Trucco - competes in the Truck class of international rally raids, using an Iveco racetruck. She entered her first Dakar in 2005, and has competed in every edition since then. In 2010, she seems to have branched out and entered more rounds of the Cross-Country World Cup, still in the Iveco. Her best result has been a win in the Truck class of the 2010 Pharaons Rally, and  a third in class in the Tunisian Rally. She also competes in motorcycle enduros in her homeland of Italy. It is unclear whether she raced after this.

Syndiely Wade - Senegalese rally raid specialist who has participated in four editions of the Dakar. Her first entry, in 2003, resulted in the 58th spot. She drove a Nissan Terrano in the event in 2004, but could not finish this time. Another Nissan vehicle gave her a 52nd place in 2005, as well as a finish in the all-female Rally Aicha des Gazelles, with Valerie Dot navigating. After a break from competition in 2006, she tried the Dakar again in 2007, but did not finish. She and Valerie competed in the 2008 Rally des Gazelles, although the Dakar was cancelled. In 2010, she entered the Rallye des Gazelles again, alongside Carole Montillet Carles. Their vehicle was a Nissan Springbok. They repeated their win in 2011, and Syndiely triumphed again in 2013, this time with Florence Pham. They were driving an Isuzu D-Max. Her profile has been lower since her father was deposed as the President of Senegal, although she competed in the 2022 Dakar as part of an Iveco truck crew. She returned as a truck crew member in 2024.

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