Nani Roma, for his 28th Dakar with maximum confidence in Ford: “We are here to change history”

Joan ‘Nani’ Roma (February 17, 1972, Folgueroles) will face the January 3 to 17, 2025, its 28th participation in the Dakar. One thing that despite his experience, his two Dakar victories (2004 on motorcycles and 2014 on cars) and his 52 years He faces the enthusiasm of a child debuting with the best. And Dakar 2025 will mean the return of Nani to the fight for victory in cars, among the favorites again after the years he developed the BRX and, above all, after overcoming bladder cancer.

There were times when Nani thought he would never be able to fight again. But he did. After winning that important battle, Ford and M-Sport gave him the opportunity to feel like a driver again to return to Dakar last year to start the oval brand project. Their goal is to accompany the team in a completely new race for them (M-Sport has a tradition and history in the World Rally Championship but not in Dakar).

He has to show the team what the toughest race in the world is, its secrets and everything they need to win. He competed in his first Dakar with Ford with a car that should not be the final, but rather a good vehicle for the team to add learning. facing the creation of the car of 2025, a Ford Raptor T1+ (highest category) developed from the beginning by Nani, and then by Carlos Sainz, especially in the suspensions, with the sole aim of achieving victory, preferably, from this first year, in Dakar 2025.

Nani and his inseparable co-driver Àlex Haro will form a ‘Dream Team’ for the North American firm with Sainz, Mattias Ekström and Mitch Guthrie and made this very clear at the presentation of their project held this Friday in Barcelona, ​​​​​​​​that the team’s goal is to help each other, “like Peterhansel and Ekström did with Sainz last year” so that Ford can win the Dakar.

“We are ready to fight to win”

No one has won the Dakar with a new car, in its first year, because of the many traps that the desert has, the long stages and its extreme hardness, which cannot be compared to any previous test or race. It is true that Toyota has many years of racing experience and more certainty in terms of reliability, with a car that is heavily used in the Dakar, but Nani is confident in the potential of his car after “more than 17,000 kilometers of testing we have done.” , where I made 6,000″.

“Toyota is definitely a favorite, because they didn’t change the car (they lengthened it and improved the engine), it was a very well-rounded car all these years. Dacia inherited a part of the car we made . in BRX and we started from scratch Historically, no brand has won the Dakar in its first year and there are always small problems, but we are here to change history,” he told MD this Friday..

“We want to try to change history and we have worked hard on it. Overall, the car works wonderfully in terms of suspensions, transmission, chassis and everything, but what we are most concerned about now are the small details, the little things, and that’s why we worked after Morocco. That’s what kilometers and years in Dakar give you, as in the case of Toyota, without affecting anything,” he added in this regard.

“But we tried to analyze everything that happened to us and I think we are doing very well. But I also tell you: if something happens to us, there is no blame. Both Ford Performance and M-Sport, like us, have done a job I’ve never seen before, and I’ve been doing it for over 30 years. If things happen to us, it’s part of the game, but I’m confident that with Ford we can win, in terms of performance we have a very good car, I’m sure, although in Dakar we’ll see how we is compared to others.”

Ford, unlike all rivals, will go with a non-turbo V8 engine, while the rest will put a turbo V6. The other big difference is made by the suspensions: Ford is the only one to go with Fox, ensuring the exclusivity of this brand to make a difference, and the others chose Reiger, something that Ford are also confident in their choice. “We chose this path. In life it is interesting to choose different paths,” Roma said.

Since March, at the forefront of car development

Since March, Nani Roma has been focused on the development of the Ford Raptor T1+ in Cumbria (United Kingdom), the headquarters of M-Sport. There he spent several weeks testing the car to the max. He did not hesitate to put the car on a motocross track to practice jumps and continue: He stood on top of a construction machine to create larger jumps for himself to test transmissions.. “Some were damaged,” he admitted of an important job to ensure the car could withstand all kinds of impacts in the toughest race in the world.

Then, he emphasized the enormous importance that Ford engineers put into ensuring that drivers are comfortable in the car. to reduce his fatigue, something that pleased Nani because he is 1.90 meters tall. “This doesn’t happen with any team, where engineers only look at performance,” he said. They scanned his body, arranged the cabin so that his size was not a problem and so that all the pilots and co-pilots had the greatest comfort.

And of course, he highlighted to MD the importance of the arrival of Carlos Sainz, the best suspension developer in the world, to complement the Madrid native in the growth of the vehicle.

Nani referred to the “tremendous record-breaking effort” that Ford put into creating the 4 cars they will have at the Dakar. Nani acknowledges that he still has miles to go in his previous career. He won the Rally Hungary but was not in Morocco due to a lack of cars, to give his teammates the chance to test themselves in a car that Nani knew better than the others. It’s been a tough year, with a lot of work for Roma, but he hopes the reward will be great. Win the Dakar every 10 years. He achieved it in 2004 in motorcycles, in 2014 in cars and in 2024 he could not do it again because he was with a less competitive Ford. In 2025 he wants to change history. He wants the win.