The administrative and technical scrutineering of the Fenix Rally 2026 is on the programme today on the island of Djerba. The prologue follows tomorrow, after which the sixth edition of RBI Sport’s Tunisian desert rally makes its way across seven stages via Douz to Monastir. What’s new is that the rally shares the sand this year with Loasis L’Original, a rally-raid for historic vehicles.
The entry list counts 88 participants in the competitive Cross Country category and nine crews in the non-timed Discovery class, hailing from 21 countries. Loasis L’Original counts more than forty entries.
For the Netherlands, it’s a notably well-represented edition. In total, 25 Dutch competitors are on the list: five motorcycle riders, nineteen drivers and navigators spread across ten SSV crews, and navigator Arjan van Tiel, who finished second among the open cars last year alongside Belgian Vincent Thijs and lines up as one of the favourites this year.
From the coast to the Sahara and back
The programme already began on 21 October with the ferry from Genoa to Tunis. From the Tunisian capital, the participants drove more than 500 kilometres under their own steam to Djerba, which forms the first base. After the prologue this coming Saturday (122 kilometres), the first stage follows on Sunday from Djerba to Douz (472 kilometres). There the caravan stays for four days for loops through the sand of the Sahara, with the third stage of 524 kilometres as the longest day of the week. On Friday 30 October, the rally moves 505 kilometres to Monastir, where a closing loop of 228 kilometres and the prize-giving follow on Saturday. The provisional programme comes out at 2,846 kilometres, slightly more than the 2025 edition.
The concept remains compact and comfortable. Participants spend every night in hotels, with the service park and the organisation in the immediate vicinity. All classes navigate with the digital IRIS roadbook from Geotraq; there is no paper roadbook. When moving the event from spring to autumn, the organisation pointed last year to better weather, among other things. Yet that very edition was hit by heavy rainfall: the bivouac in Douz turned out to be unreachable on the first day; an improvised camp had to be set up in Tozeur; the riders’ briefing was scrapped; and parts of the final stage were shortened because of damaged roads.
Loasis L’Original: classics in the same sand
The collaboration with Loasis L’Original is the biggest innovation of this edition. The event was set up by Frenchman Gilles Girousse, according to RBI Sport a regular participant in its own rallies, and was run in Morocco over the past three years. Loasis is not a regularity run, but a timed rally-raid with roadbook and navigation for historic cars and motorcycles. The classics largely follow the same routes, share the hotels and the schedule with the modern field, but skip the heaviest dune sections.
The Loasis list counts 41 entries: four motorcycles, 36 cars and one MAN truck with a German crew. The field is almost entirely French and full of period pieces from Toyota, Mitsubishi, Nissan and Land Rover, supplemented by a Lada, a Citroën and two Bowlers. Girousse takes part himself, with François Costes beside him in the Lada bearing number 303. There are no Dutch competitors on the Loasis list.
Motorcycles and quads: an open battle
Last year’s podium, with winner Duong Nguyen Khoa, Edvard Sokolovski and Urban Jerkic, is entirely absent. That makes the motorcycle class, with seventeen riders, an open book. It’s striking that only a handful of riders appear on a genuine rally machine: German Justin Gerlach rides a KTM 450 Rally, Pole Marian Augustyn a Fantic XEF 450 Rally and Frenchwoman Sara Jugla a Kove 450 Rally. The vast majority of the field starts on enduro bikes. With four Tunisians and two Algerians, there is also a strong North African representation.
The 23-year-old Jeremy Knuiman is the son of Henk Knuiman, who twice finished in the top ten of the Dakar. In March he made his international rally-raid debut in the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid Portugal and immediately won the prologue in the Rally2 class. That delivered the first Dutch W2RC victory on two wheels. Knuiman, who comes from motocross, let it be known there that he would prefer to switch fully to rally-raid, as his father did earlier.
Another familiar Dakar name in the motorcycle class is that of Pascal de Baar. The man from Twello is best known from the trucks. For the Riwald Dakar Team he won a stage in the Dakar Rally in 2016 and 2023, and in 2021 he took the Silk Way Rally to his name. De Baar regularly gets on the bike for his own enjoyment to ride a rally together with friends.
Among the quads it comes down to a two-way battle between the Poles Karol Slugocki and Adam Krysiak, both on a Polaris Scrambler. Last year the Lithuanian Antanas Kanopkinas won the class; he is not on the list this year.
SSV: the largest and most varied class
With 46 crews, the SSVs make up well over half of the Cross Country field. Here too, the two fastest crews of last year are absent, winners Juraj Varga and Radovan Schneider and runners-up Tomas Kubiena and Miroslav Losos. Frenchman Eric Culus, third last year with Carla Isidoro, is the highest-placed returnee. Nicolas Martinez, who won the final stage last year in his Overdrive OT3, now rides with Lili Delfino. Rinaldi René Jean, second on the last day, is back as well.
A new name with weight is Pierre Lafay. The Frenchman won the SSV class of the Africa Eco Race early last year with Gilles de Turckheim and now rides a Can-Am Maverick R with Loïc Minaudier for QT Motorsport. Hugues Lacam, who was already among the fastest SSV riders at the first Fenix Rally in 2021, now lines up with an MMP T3.
That last one illustrates a peculiarity of this class. Can-Ams and Polarises based on production models race in one class with light T3 prototypes, such as the Taurus T3 Max of Italian Riccardo Benettolo, Martinez’s Overdrive, Lacam’s MMP and the two GPRs of Dutch team OryxRallySport. The four Belgian Can-Ams of Art of Speed also stand out, as do the all-female Czech crew Lenka Hlavata and Marketa Srbova (Heels on Wheels) and the Japanese Keiko Hamaguchi, who rides a Polaris with Umberto Fiori for RZR Team Polaris Italia.
Cars: Thijs and Van Tiel as highest-placed returnees
Among the cars, twenty crews are on the list, thirteen in the open class and seven in the Limited class. Last year’s Italian winners, Agostino Rizzardi and Claudio Fenati with their Porsche-Century, do not return, and the Estonian Hardo Mere (third in 2025) is also absent. That makes Vincent Thijs and Arjan van Tiel the highest-placed crew of 2025 to line up again. The Belgian-Dutch duo from RT Offroad rides a Toyota Hilux with a five-litre V8 from Lexus and was already the fastest car on the opening day last year. In the final standings it remained 44 minutes and 46 seconds behind Rizzardi.
The biggest competition probably comes from the Feryn Rally Raid Team, which again lines up with two Toyota Hilux. Pascal Feryn and Kurt Keysers retired last year due to a broken high-pressure line of the power steering. Koen Wauters and Tom De Leeuw lost their podium chances through two flat tyres and getting stuck four times in a single day, and finished fourth among the cars. Wauters was positive afterwards about the toughness of the rally. The organisation had stated at the start that anyone who finishes the Fenix Rally is ready for the Africa Eco Race or even the Dakar. “I have to agree with him on that,” said the Belgian singer and Dakar veteran. In that Africa Eco Race, incidentally, Wauters retired earlier this year.
The Poles Magdalena Zajac and Blazej Czekan (Toyota Hilux), last year’s winners of the final stage among the cars, are also back. Furthermore, the entry list includes the Italians Manuele Mengozzi and Elisa Tassile (Toyota Hilux Overdrive), the Belgians Vincent Vroninks and Dave Berghmans (Red-Lined VK56) and the Britons Thomas Jolliffe and Mark Foster with a Land Rover Defender from Blackbird Industries.
In the Limited class, the Austrians Ewald Holler and Markus Bodzenta (Toyota Land Cruiser KZJ73), second last year, return. Abdennour Benabdennour, third last year, now rides his Mitsubishi Pajero with Abdelwaheb Dakhlaoui. The Frenchmen Alexandre Jonchère and Fabien Rouvre bring a Bowler Wildcat.
Trucks and Discovery: thinly filled
The truck class counts just three entries. Last year the Dutch Rainbow Truck Team of Gerrit Zuurmond, Tjeerd van Ballegooij and Klaas Kwakkel won, a team that also took the truck class of the Africa Eco Race earlier this year. They, like the crew of Franciscus van Lankveld that finished third last year, are not on the list, which means no Dutch truck takes part this year. The Italians Paolo Calabria, Loris Calubini and Carlos Alberto Viña (MAN TGA), second last year, are joined by an ÖAF Gräf & Stift of the Germans Stella Koerber, Maximilian Jackermeier and Sebastian Roedel and a MAN KAT 1 of Michael Wolff and Roberto Briani.
In the Guided Discovery category, without timing and classification but with guidance from experienced desert riders, nine crews take part, five of them from Bulgaria.
The Dutch
Among the motorcycles, the De Baar Rally Team comes with four riders: Daan Veenendaal (GasGas 500), Dries de Baar (GasGas 450), Pascal de Baar (KTM EXC 525) and Richard Wijntjes (Husqvarna FE 501). Jeremy Knuiman rides a KTM EXC 450 under the Team Knuiman banner. That makes nearly a third of the motorcycle class Dutch. All five ride enduro bikes.
The most experience at the highest level sits with the SSVs. Henri van Steenbergen and Daan van Ooijen (GPR Oryx GPR22) and Daniel Kersbergen with Belgian navigator Michiel Goegebeur (GPR Orange Bull GPR24) both ride for OryxRallySport and lined up in January in the same line-up at the start of the Dakar Rally in the Challenger class. Dick van Culenborg made his debut as a driver for Team Rebellion & Spierings at that same Dakar, but rolled over several times in the third stage. In Tunisia he rides a Can-Am Maverick R with Marius Bos under DVC Racing’s own banner. André Thewessen, who previously rode the Dakar in the SSV class, starts with Jeffrey Spoor in a Can-Am Maverick R from South Racing for ATS Rally.
De Run Trading brings three crews: Harrie van Empel and Stefan van Ras and the duo Max and Sem van Empel both ride a Maverick X3 from South Racing, while Coen Nooijen and Tijs Dijk ride a Can-Am X3. The list also includes Rob van Horssen and Carlo Spreeuwenberg (Can-Am Maverick R, Roca Racing Team), Arjan Donders and Edwin Vloemans (Polaris RZR Pro R, Quadwinkel) and the crew of Go Slow Racing. That last one entered the driver under the name “Captain Slow”, with Jan-Willem van Mourik as navigator in a Can-Am Maverick X3.
Among the cars, Arjan van Tiel is the only Dutch competitor, but with last year’s second place and the absence of the winners, he has realistic chances of the class victory.
