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While no secret that the Stock category has been a Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body playground for the past decade, it was probably an unusual experience for Ronald Basso to only see his name on the class leaderboard during the Rallye du Maroc.
The team normally enters Basso and Akira Miura in the class at the Dakar Rally and Rallye du Maroc, where they would often be the only Stock cars present save for the occasional one-off as was the case at this year’s Dakar. However, Toyota Auto Body opted to have Miura drive a modified Toyota Land Cruiser 300 GR Sport that was not yet homologated by the FIA, which consigned him to the Open class instead of Stock.
With nobody to compete against, Basso’s main goal was to complete the race and see how his Land Cruiser fared in the desert conditions. Any snags he encountered would then be addressed in the months leading up to the 2025 Dakar Rally in January.
He had a clean Prologue and Stage #1 in which he respectively finished eightieth and sixty-seventh among all FIA cars. However, problems started to mount in the second day when electrical issues struck and he and co-driver Jean-Pierre Garcin detected oddities with the air intake; they briefly stopped to identify the problem and finished ninety-first. After replacing the damaged parts, they were seventieth in a drama-free Stage #3.
Stage #4 the #500 finish an impressive thirty-third in FIA. A sixty-sixth on the last day closed out the race with a final time of 21:34:10, fifty-eighth fastest.
“The focus this time was more on identifying problems rather than results,” explained team manager Yuji Kakutani. “Both cars faced various problems, big and small, and it was a great test. We plan to continue developing the cars as long as time allows. I believe the team has raised our level of completion, so I will work hard to bring together the team so we can compete as one.”
Although competing solo this time, the win was still Basso’s second in a row at the Rallye du Maroc. The Frenchman also beat Miura to take the Stock victory at Dakar for a season sweep, just as he did in 2023.
“There were some minor issues, but we are prepared for the 2025 Dakar Rally,” commented head mechanic Philippe Challoy. “This Rallye du Maroc was a lot of work and we had to work until dawn on most nights. However, our two Japanese mechanics (Tetsuya Sonda and Fumihiko Tanigami, both from Fukuoka Toyota Corporation) worked hard and I feel they’ve grown since the last test.
“We will continue adjusting the cars until the very end to achieve a 1–2 finish in the 2025 event.”
Stock overall results
| Finish | Number | Driver | Co-Driver | Team | Time | Margin |
| 1 | 500 | Ronald Basso* | Jean-Pierre Garcin | Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body | 21:34:10 | Leader |
