Ross Branch: “Then you get lost in the desert” / Dakar Moto

Many rally drivers have their roots in motocross, where they learned the basics of motorcycle control. This also applies to world champion Ross Branch: The man from Botswana first appeared at an MX2 World Championship event in 2008, and the following year and again in 2019 he competed in the highest class, MXGP.

The African from the Hero factory team has been competing in rallies since 2011, and in 2019 he took part in his first Dakar. Since then, Branch has celebrated six stage wins and finished second overall behind Ricky Brabec (Honda) in 2024.

The Dakar Rally 2025, which is taking place in Saudi Arabia for the sixth time, begins on January 3rd and preparations for the biggest off-road race of the year have been completed.

“I did a lot of motocross, jogging and cycling,” Branch said when meeting SPEEDWEEK.com. “I was also in Namibia a few times and practiced for the road books. The most important thing in the Dakar is navigation. There are a lot of guys who can drive fast. But if you can’t do it, you’ll be lost and have no chance of winning the Dakar. That’s why I’ve focused on navigation in recent years. That’s why I have someone who creates road books for me. He does this with Google Maps, I then go to the desert in Namibia and try to follow his map. To practice you need a country where there is a lot of wilderness – I trained almost 15,000 kilometers in Namibia this year.”

The Dakar will feature a prologue and twelve stages between January 3rd and 17th, 2025. The route begins in Bisha and stretches over around 7,700 kilometers, 5,100 of which are special stages. A constant tightrope walk at the limit for man and machine.

“Not many people can manage to sit on a motorcycle for 14 days in a row and ride 600, 800 or 1000 kilometers a day,” said Branch. “I come from motocross racing, rallying is something completely different. I do my best every day, but physically it is impossible to win every stage. For the Dakar you also have to be extremely mentally strong. I took part for the first time in 2019, when the entire race was in Peru. Since then we have been driving in Saudi Arabia, a beautiful area with very different landscapes. The people there have welcomed us, they enjoy the sport, which is becoming increasingly popular. The world is changing, Saudi Arabia is one of the countries where changes are happening quickly. I have noticed big changes there in the past five years. The country has opened up, guests are welcome, many regulations have changed.”

After two years with KTM and two with Yamaha, Branch will contest his seventh Dakar for the third time with Hero, whose factory team is based in Stephanskirchen near Rosenheim. For 2025, a few kilograms were shed from the new Hero 450 Rallye, and Branch got Nacho Cornejo as a new teammate. The third man in the team is Sebastian Bühler from Duisburg.

“We now have a real hero motorcycle and great people working on it and developing it for us,” emphasized Ross. “Hero saw that we could win and give us maximum support.” These are very exciting times. It’s a shame that manufacturers have withdrawn (Husqvarna and GASGAS – the author) because there are some good unseated riders that we need to raise the level of the sport. There are new manufacturers in the starting blocks with Kawasaki and Triumph, which would be great for the sport. The more manufacturers take part, the better the opportunities are for drivers. If all two-wheeler manufacturers took part in the Dakar, it would be incredible.”