Kevin Gallas has won the 2026 Addax Rally. The German rider of the Ténéré Yamaha Rally Team defended his 2025 title after a prologue and five stages around Merzouga, finishing in 24:21:53. Teammate Alessandro Botturi took second place at 21 minutes and 45 seconds, giving Yamaha a one-two finish. The podium was completed by Mario Olmedilla, the best rider in the up-to-450cc class, who crossed the line 41 minutes and 29 seconds behind Gallas.
The rally ran from 25 to 30 October and has now reached its fourth edition. Yamaha pointedly used the week as a test for January’s Africa Eco Race, but the rally’s story is a broader one. Aprilia Tuareg Racing lined up with three riders. Thomas Marini won one stage, Gerard Farrés won another, and behind them riders from the 450cc class fought for the podium places. Among the SSVs, victory went to Paulo Rodrigues and Fausto Mota of Rio Seco. Navigation mistakes and bad luck cost nearly everyone in the top ten minutes at some point, and in some cases hours.
A fixed base and long loops
All stages were run from the Nasser Palace Hotel in Merzouga, which also housed the service park and the organisation’s headquarters. It is a loop format with a fixed bivouac: a new route into the desert each day, and every evening a return to the same place. The organisation speaks of roughly 1,600 kilometres featuring sandy sections, rocky tracks and the dunes of the Erg Chebbi. According to the regulations, the Elite class covers around 400 kilometres per stage and the Pro class around 300. Competitors race in Race 1 (up to 450cc), Race 2 (above 450cc), Race 3 (maxi-trails and twin-cylinders) and Race E for electric bikes, plus Malles Moto, the variant without technical assistance.
It quickly became clear that the 25-kilometre prologue was not decisive. Spaniard Javi Vega set the fastest time (00:18:48), followed by Marco Menichini and Thomas Marini of Aprilia. The Yamaha riders, according to their team, deliberately held back to secure favourable starting positions for the first stage. Gautier Paulin was unable to finish the prologue due to a technical problem.
Gallas takes the lead and never gives it up
Gallas started stage 1 as the ninth bike and worked his way forward. When several riders lost the route, he spotted a turn that the others had missed. He won the stage in 04:34:58, including a two-minute time penalty, ahead of Paulin (six minutes and 54 seconds later) and Botturi. Yamaha thus occupied the entire podium of the day.
At roughly 370 timed kilometres, the second stage was the longest and ran largely through the dunes. Gallas won in 05:45:39 and rode much of the day together with Paulin, who opened the tracks in the sand. Paulin looked set for the stage win until a hard impact, some forty kilometres from the finish, caused a technical problem. He finished second at seven minutes and 43 seconds. Botturi struggled from the very first kilometres with a problem on his navigation tablet and came home fifth. His deficit to Gallas grew to 28 minutes and 33 seconds.
On day three the stage win went to Marini (04:45:02), with Gallas second at three minutes and eleven seconds. Farrés was third and Botturi fourth. Paulin did not start: Yamaha had his bike inspected and tested further after the previous day’s impact. That cost him his place in the overall standings. Paulin himself took a pragmatic view: “Every kilometre in the desert teaches me something new”, he said afterwards.
On day four, Farrés was the fastest according to the provisional results (04:07:18), with Paulin second (04:16:10) and Josep Pedró third (04:16:34). Gallas was seventh, but went into the final day with a lead of 20 minutes and eight seconds over Botturi.
That closing stage did not go flawlessly for the leader. Around the first fuel stop he lost time to a small problem, after which, in his haste, he made a few navigation mistakes. By his own account, he urged himself to stay calm and rode the final 120 kilometres smoothly. It earned him his third stage win in 04:12:59, after earlier victories on days one and two. Botturi was second at one minute and 37 seconds.
Marini, Olmedilla and the rest of the top
For Aprilia, the week was a good opportunity to test the Tuareg Rally in the desert. Marini came to Morocco as the freshly crowned winner of the European Tout Terrain Rally Cup and confirmed his pace with his stage win. After four stages he sat third overall, seven minutes and thirteen seconds ahead of Olmedilla. On the final day he lost well over thirty minutes to Gallas (04:43:02 against 04:12:59), while Olmedilla set the third-fastest time of the day with 04:19:33. That let Olmedilla move past him, and Marini finished fourth in 25:19:38. What happened on that final stage cannot be found in the available sources.
Olmedilla was the constant factor: no stage wins, but a time among the leaders in every stage. That earned him third place. Pedró came fifth (25:51:48) despite a tough second stage of 06:51:01, and Ignas Daunoravicius sixth (27:03:33).
Vega, the prologue winner, wrecked his week in a single day. On stage 2 he took 08:19:36 over the route, well over two hours and 33 minutes more than Gallas. After that he was back in the day’s top five and finished seventh in the overall standings (27:47:01). Francesco Montanari, the third Aprilia rider, was eighth (28:57:51), Yaroslav Greshishin of MRX ninth (29:28:18) and Joan Guillen tenth (30:35:07).
The distribution by class is striking. Three of the first four places went to twin-cylinders from Race 3: the Ténéré 700 of Gallas and Botturi and the Aprilia Tuareg of Marini. The Race 1 riders from the 450cc field, led by Olmedilla and Pedró, made up the rest of the top five.
Retirements, bad luck and the broad midfield
Menichini set the second-fastest time in the prologue (00:19:57), but lost a huge amount of time on stage 2 (the results list 41:15:00) and had to retire on stage 3 after a crash with injury. He is listed as retired in the results.
For Greek Yamaha rider Kimon Karampelas (MOTODYNAMICS Rally Team), the Addax was his first desert rally. He lost a lot of time to navigation mistakes and getting stuck in the dunes on stage 2, spent a good while around eleventh place on day three, but came to a halt at kilometre 241 with a mechanical problem. On day four he was the tenth-fastest according to the results with 04:58:27. He and two other Yamaha riders, Paulin and Morgan Bernoux, are listed as excluded in the provisional results.
Behind the top runners rode a mixed field: the MRX riders of Race 1 (seven names in the results), two Nomadas riders and a single electric bike (Pedro Bianchi Patra, 25th in 72:38:04). In total, the bikes’ scratch classification counts 32 riders.
Rio Seco with a double
Among the buggies too, where T3 and T4 share a single scratch classification, the number of entries stayed small: five vehicles made the results. Victory went to Paulo Rodrigues and Fausto Mota (T4, Rio Seco) in 24:34:22. Teammates Filipe Lopes and Gonçalo Reis came second at 27 minutes and one second. The podium was completed by Marinio Zulet and Jon Irigoyen Zubieta (T3, Aixa) in 28:07:46, well over three hours and 33 minutes behind the winners.
The fight for victory stayed open until the third stage. Rodrigues set the fastest prologue (00:21:44) and, after stage 1, handed a lead of five minutes and 44 seconds to Lopes, who won the first two stages (04:36:56 and 06:09:40) and led by five minutes and 17 seconds himself after day two. On stage 3 it turned around: Rodrigues won in 04:57:18, while Lopes took well over 24 minutes longer (05:21:57). Rodrigues also won stage 4 (04:08:39), extending his margin to 35 minutes and 40 seconds. Lopes won the closing stage (03:59:23), but could only narrow the gap to the eventual 27 minutes and one second.
Alfonso Oliveira and Daniel Jordão (T4, South Racing) came fourth in 39:53:27, largely due to a stage 3 of 18:45:00. Marian Andreev and Valentin Alexandroae (T3, Kamikaze) closed out the classification in 61:23:43, with a stage 2 of 29:15:00.
Final standings bikes (top ten)
- Kevin Gallas (Yamaha) 24:21:53
- Alessandro Botturi (Yamaha) 24:43:38
- Mario Olmedilla 25:03:22
- Thomas Marini (Aprilia) 25:19:38
- Josep Pedró 25:51:48
- Ignas Daunoravicius 27:03:33
- Javi Vega 27:47:01
- Francesco Montanari (Aprilia) 28:57:51
- Yaroslav Greshishin (MRX) 29:28:18
- Joan Guillen 30:35:07
Final standings buggies
- Paulo Rodrigues / Fausto Mota (Rio Seco, T4) 24:34:22
- Filipe Lopes / Gonçalo Reis (Rio Seco, T4) 25:01:23
- Marinio Zulet / Jon Irigoyen Zubieta (Aixa, T3) 28:07:46
- Alfonso Oliveira / Daniel Jordão (South Racing, T4) 39:53:27
- Marian Andreev / Valentin Alexandroae (Kamikaze, T3) 61:23:43
