Henry Favre has raced in the desert on two wheels, but 2025 will bring a new challenge on four when he and Alessandro Iacovelli enter the Dakar Classic in a 1990 Mitsubishi Pajero.
“For months, my partner Alessandro and I have been working on the Pajero with which we will race the Dakar in Saudi Arabia in January. That’s right, it hasn’t been run in Africa for several years, but the name and difficulty are still the same,” wrote Favre on Saturday.
“In December, the car leaves Barcelona on a nice big iron pedal boat that will take all the vehicles to Arabia. We will find that upon disembarking, 800 kilometres of fresh asphalt await us to reach the bivouac.”
The two acquired the Pajero in March from a team in Tuscany, but quickly found it was in dire need of repair such as six injectors, a new power steering system, doors, and an RPM sensor. Iacovelli, a mechanic by trade, led the restoration process with assistance from R Team. An Italian outfit, R Team prepared Mitsubishi Pajeros for Marco Ernesto Leva (finished seventh overall), Giulio Bertolli (twenty-eighth), Stefano Sinibaldi (fortieth), Damiano Lipani (forty-fifth), and Giuliano Bergo (retired) at the 2024 Dakar Classic.
“The car was bought at a good price, but upon stripping it down, we found that many things were wrong. And so, in just a few months, we spent a lot of money and a lot of hours redoing almost everything,” Favre continued. “Now we have a good starting point to play around, experiment, and pray that it breaks during the testing rather than in the race.”
Favre attended the 2023 Dakar Rally as a journalist working for Gazzetta Motori, an experience that he told Aostasera made him “[fall] in love” with the discipline and want to do himself. A brand ambassador for Italian scooter aftermarket shop Malossi, he later raced that year’s Qatar International Baja (part of the FIM Bajas World Cup) on a Suzuki DR350 SK42A, though he did not finish.
The 2025 Dakar Classic, held in conjunction with the Dakar Rally, is scheduled for 3–17 January.
“We promise poor results and we will probably burn the clutch getting onto the starting stage, but we will be there,” Favre quipped.