After enjoying an "almost perfect" 2025 season, world rally-raid champion Daniel Sanders knows he has a target on his back as he seeks to make motorsport history as the first Australian to successfully defend a Dakar Rally crown
The Victorian motorcyclist, whose triumph last January kicked off an unprecedentedly brilliant season as he won the first four of the five championship races and finished second in the other, is back in the Saudi desert as strong favourite for a repeat Dakar triumph.
No man has won the two-wheel prize back-to-back at the world's most celebrated rally since Spain's Marc Coma back in 2015, with Sanders, on his Red Bull KTM, seeking the consecutive victories that even eluded his great Australian mentor Toby Price.
Price, who's swapped two wheels for four and is now competing in Dakar's Ultimate Cars category, won titles in 2016 and 2019 but never managed to repeat in the famously brutal endurance race that's run over two weeks across 7,900km of demanding, obstacle-strewn, inhospitable terrain.
In this 48th edition which begins on Saturday, the 31-year-old Sanders is adamant "there's even more pressure".
"The hardest thing is defending the title, which will require even more effort and add even more pressure. It was almost a perfect season for me last year and everyone is after me now, so it's going to be tough, but I'm ready for the challenge," says the popular rider known throughout the sport as 'Chucky'.
"I want to win the Dakar two years in a row because no rider has done that in a very long time. That's my motivation."
It won't be easy as Sanders knows better than anyone after his previous trials and tribulations at the race.
He's suffered a fractured elbow and broken wrist, had a thorn embedded in an arm muscle, endured serious food poisoning and been stung under his bike helmet by a bee - the ultimate ironic indignity for the man's who's a beekeeper back in Three Bridges.
Sanders comes into the race feeling confident despite having been beaten in his last race, the Rally of Morocco.
"I lost it, but it was a shorter race. There wasn't much time and I made too many mistakes," reflects Sanders, who also broke a bone in his chest on the second day.
"It was super disappointing and I was just really frustrated with how I was riding, but we just went back, refreshed and focused on what we needed to do. We've got a good mindset and everything else coming into this race.
"We're always improving, making updates on the bike, making it better and better, which we have, and I'm excited to use it this year. We don't stop, we keep moving forward, you can't rest.
"I'm still going flat out. My riding style hasn't changed. I can now ride the bike at 100 per cent -- and there's no better feeling."
Last year, Sanders scored five stage wins in a dominant triumph but, in a field of more than 100 bikes, he's likely to face his toughest examination from Spanish Monster Energy Honda rider Tosha Schareina, last year's runner-up and his Morocco conqueror.
