The Yarra Ranges motorbike prodigy, Daniel “Chucky” Sanders, has been crowned the Rally GP champion after winning the Portugal 2025 World Rally-Raid, making him the first ever to secure the Rally GP title before the last round.
After some costly mistakes in the third stage of the Portugal 2025 World Rally-Raid, the Three Bridges-born motorbike racer soared to new heights and made a historic effort, closing a one minute 40 second gap and building another 50 seconds on top of it by the last 20 kilometres.
It’s the fourth round he’s won, which means he’s secure the Rally GP world champion title before the last round has started.
He crossed the finish line with three minutes 40 seconds to spare over runner-up Tosha Schareina who proved unable to defend his title.
2025 started with the history-making Dakar Rally win in February, and he followed that with an Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge victory and a South African Safari Rally win shortly after.
Sanders said in a Facebook post that for the fourth round, he needed to pull through with an exceptional performance to make up for lost time.
“The extremely high pace made navigation tough with all the tight corners and frequent changes of direction, but I held strong and put together great navigation right to the finish line,” Sanders said.
