Van Beveren wins Andalucia Rally | Sunderland Rally-Raid Champion

GASGAS Factory Racing’s Sam Sunderland became the 2022 FIM World Rally-Raid Champion after wrapping up the Andalucia Rally in fifth, marking the first world title for GASGAS in rally competition.

As racing seasons go, it couldn’t really have gone much better for Sam Sunderland. Kicking off 2022 by winning the biggest race of them all, the Dakar Rally he took an early lead in the 2022 FIM World Rally-Raid Championship.

Round two, the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, was up next and the GASGAS Factory Racing star’s winning ways continued. Riding a faultless race and still stoked on his Dakar win, the Brit claimed his second victory on the bounce to further extend his points lead at the top of the world championship.

After a couple of cancellations and postponements in the racing calendar, Sam didn’t line up for FIM World Rally-Raid Championship duty again until the Rallye du Maroc in early October. In what was perhaps his most crucial result of the season, Sam overcame the discomfort of a pre-race crash to put in a gutsy performance and place fifth overall to maintain his championship lead.

Heading into this year’s final round, the Andalucia Rally, Sam needed just three points to be crowned world champion.

A runner-up finish on stage one continued his promising start before the second day of racing was cancelled due to bad weather. A couple of mistakes on the penultimate stage and an unfortunate time penalty ruled out any chance of ending the season with a podium result.

Knowing that he just needed to complete the final stage to be crowned champion, Sam did exactly that to lift the 2022 FIM World Rally-Raid Championship trophy surrounded by the entire GASGAS Factory Racing team.

Rounding out the top three in the championship were Team Monster Energy Honda’s Ricky Brabec and Adrien Van Beveren on 59 and 58-points respectively.

Husqvarna’s Luciano Benavides was fourth on 52-points, tied with Pablo Quintanilla, José Ignacio Cornejo sixth on 39-points. KTM’s top two riders were Kevin Benavides and Matthias Walkner on 36 and 35-points respectively in seventh and eighth.

2022 FIM World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC)
Andalucia Rally

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