TOBY PRICE AND SAM SUNDERLAND 2025 DAKAR TEST WITH TOYOTA

Just a month after it was announced that Toby Price and Sam Sunderland would be joining forces on four-wheels, today marked their first test with Toyota – logging valuable seat time in their Hilux ahead of the 2025 Dakar Rally beginning on January 3rd.  

Both have been riding on two wheels just this January at the famous event, but will now have to learn how to work together inside none other than the T1+ Overdrive Toyota Hilux. 

Toby Price won the Dakar Rally in 2016 and 2019 for KTM Factory Racing, while his co-driver Sunderland won the race in 2017 and 2022. Earlier this year Price, alongside Paul Wheel, won the Baja 500 in his Quad Lock Mason Motorsports Trophy Truck. Sunderland retired from bike racing this year and switched to cars for the first time for the Dubai Baja event last week with Hannes Kinigadner.

The duo will face the Dakar Rally as the first ever pairing of Dakar bike Champions in a car category.

Price and Sunderland’s first test focused on making both the driver and navigator comfortable in the car. With total of over 20 Dakar Rally’s under the belt for the duo, they believe the experience of opening stages as bikers will come in their favour. 

Toby Price commented:
“Today has been a little surreal, to be honest. This has been such a long time in the making, and to finally see it all come together is truly amazing. It’s really exciting to reveal the car to the world and showcase the incredible partners supporting us.”

“It’s an advantage being two bike guys in one car. Surely, we will make mistakes and things will go wrong but at the end of the day we are going to have some bike lines in front of us as well as car lines so once we get into the groove, we will be good from there.”

”Even though we have done over 20 Dakar Rally’s already, it’s a new category for us and the wins don’t guarantee anything. Top-10 will be definitely a great result,” said Toby Price explaining the ambitions for their first year. You can make thousands of plans but they will never be enough. We must take it day by day – just keep the wheels rolling.”

Sam Sunderland added:
“I am extremely lucky to be in the sport for a long time so I have great relationships with the riders and drivers. I was lucky to have Mathieu Baumel at the house the other day to try and extract as much information as possible. Still a lot to learn but I am picking out the key points from the information overload and learning day by day.”

“Looking forward to this new adventure. I’m excited and nervous at the same time. I am happy that I have a cage around us and a seatbelt but I’m still nervous. I can do basic mechanic stuff but don’t know how quick and it is going to be fun to see how we operate under pressure. Hopefully we don’t get too many flat tires!”

“It’s incredibly exciting to see everything come to life after months of back-and-forth emails and WhatsApp messages to piece it all together. Seeing it in real life is such a special moment and I’m so grateful to everyone who helped get us to the start line of the Dakar Rally.”

For more Dakar insight, check out Price & Sunderland’s recent interview from Red Bull’s “In The Dust” series.

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