RELIABILITY AND PERFORMANCE IN DAKAR

The 2025 Dakar, 1st round of the FIA and FIM World Rally-Raid Championship came to an end a few days ago. And if many actors and crews tend to say it might have been the toughest in history, KENNOL is proud to have helped and lubricated some of the most reliable teams and vehicles in this gruelling edition.

▌THE MOST DIFFICULT RALLY-RAID

Since 1979, the Dakar is knowned as the toughest rally-raid in the World. And this 2025 edition directly enters the circle of the most difficult ones, with some of the longest specials (1.000kms) and even a 48h stage! This huge challenge directly influences another important figure. The event saw a significant dropout rate: 108 vehicles, or 32.24%, were unable to reach the end. Amongst the finishers, though, French team Boucou Competition started its 20th Dakar with 10 vehicles. 9 of them were lubricated with KENNOL products. And crossed the finish line.

Rally experts since 2006 (Dakar, Morocco, Silk Way, etc.), the Boucou Assistance team is one of the most recognized in the rally-raid World. And they appointed KENNOL as their Official Supplier in this gruelling exercise.

God created the desert so that man could find his soul.

T. E. Lawrence of Arabia

▌A TRUE RELIABILITY, AND MORE

The assistance team also competes. It means that most their vehicles are racing, but as soon as someone is in difficulty, or needs assistance, as a competitor, they change their road and rush to the aid of the accidented racer. It not only requires the strength to survive this extraordinary adventure, but also to assume taking responsibilities for those that believe they could, and failed.

Boucou Competition and their partner team Be Racing already had the opportunity to test KENNOL products last season. And they did good, since Equatorian racer Sebastian Guayasamin finished the season as the Vice-World Champion in FIA W2RC (SSV)!

This year, the package is more complete: motor oils for SSVs, trucks and heavy-duties, axle oil, transmission oils, coolants, brake fluid, even windscreen washers! The KENNOL range is used at its best on such an adventure. And performed in some of the most radical temperatures, temperatures amplitudes, dirty conditions, and dry environment on Earth.

The 3 last stages were held in what is called the “Empty Quarter“, the southern desertic area of the Arabic Peninsula. It offers sand, sand, and then again sand, on a surface as big as France, with dunes 250m tall, that could almost cover the Eiffel Tower! And despite the difficulties, despite the racing competition, Team Boucou Competition kept assisting teams in despair, just a few hours before the finish line.

Because, during the 1977 Abidjan-Nice rallye, if Thierry Sabine hadn’t been assisted and saved from death, lost in the desertic landscapes of Libya, the Dakar wouldn’t have existed.
“To thrill those who leave, and to inspire those who stay”.

For this edition, Boucou Competition and Be Racing count 90% of their teams in the final rankings, a 2nd place at the general ranking of Trucks in Dakar Classic, and a 1st place in Dakar Trucks (cat. T5.2).