Rebecca Busi Clinches Silver at Sonora Rally!

Guest blog by Thiemo Albers-Daly

From the 24th to the 28th April, there was an epic World Rally Raid Championship (WRRC) event happening in Mexico – the Sonora Rally! With drivers such as Nasser Al Attiyah to Sara Price and Sebastien Loeb all competing (to name just a few), the competition was strong across the board in all the different categories. One of those categories was the T4 category and that was where Rebecca Busi began her 2023 comeback charge.

Having had a very character building experience in the Dakar back in January (she and then co-driver Giulia Maroni were forced to retire from the race just one day from the end) and having to miss the last round of the WRCC in Abu Dhabi, Rebecca has had to make some changes before she could get properly behind the wheel again.

While there was lots of hard work going on behind the scenes (check out Rebecca’s social media to get an idea of just how busy she’s been!), the two main changes were that she joined the FN Speed Team ahead of the Sonora Rally and teamed up with a new co-driver ahead of Mexico, France’s Sebastien Delauney. The change in co-driver would also come with a new challenge for Rebecca as this would be the first time that she would compete in a race and have to speak in English rather than Italian for navigation purposes. It always seems to be a case of getting thrown into the deep end when it comes to Rebecca Busi’s racing career.

“This race was the first I did after Dakar and I prepared everything for it like a Pro. I changed everything in order to free my mind and I trained to focus on the performance. I knew I had a good challenge ahead!” – Rebecca Busi

The shakedown and the prologue ahead of the race in Mexico went well with the set up for the car suiting Rebecca’s driving style. Vibes were good with the team and there was tentative optimism for the week to come.

Day one was rather dusty but made for a solid foundation as Rebecca drove 175 km for the first stage. Stage two proved to be less of a rally at times and more of a Mario Kart esque video game as Rebecca had to avoid numerous holes and ditches as well as a seemingly never ending supply of cacti. The technical nature of the stage didn’t catch Rebecca out though and in the end, it proved to be a lot of fun for the Italian, boosting her confidence more and proving to be a very valuable experience.

At this point in the endurance race, Rebecca and the team were in P3 in their category but hunting down P2 quickly. There was some good natured banter going on off track between all of the competitors but it didn’t mean that any of them were going to stop racing hard to climb higher up the rankings.

Stage three then was even longer as it was a special stage of 350 km in distance. Rebecca got to meet her old friend, the dunes, during this particularly long day but the main challenge in the end was visibility as the dust never seemed to stop coming and made all aspects of racing particularly challenging.

Stage four was then an Avengers level event as the variety of landscapes the drivers went through was insane with everything from more dunes and cacti on dirt tracks to arriving at the beach near the end of the stage.

Things were looking good for the final day of the race but as is always the case in endurance racing and off road racing, the closer to the end we get, the more likely it is we’ll see something dramatic happen. The last thing Rebecca or the team wanted was a repeat of the Dakar, especially after such a strong week and the very real possibility of securing P2 in the race.

However, it was not all doom and gloom and come the end of the final stage on Friday, Rebecca had made sure that the position she’d gained to climb into P2 stayed that way and with that, got herself and the team onto the podium for the first time in 2023.

It was an incredibly satisfying end to her time in Mexico and her second place finish brought home her first points for the Championship.

“I showed that I can do it and I need only a bit of extra experience! The rally was amazing, not that many dunes (the thing I missed the most!) but it was full of good landscapes, some technical parts and others in the race were really fast and that was a challenge too!”  – Rebecca Busi

There are a lot of positives to take from Mexico and it’s proof that anything can happen in motorsport, even when you think all the bad luck is on your side. One good race can turn things around and keep you in the game – and that’s exactly what’s happened here. It’s also worth remembering that in the grand scheme of things, Rebecca is still fairly new to motorsport, with only a handful of races under her belt to date – including two Dakars, one of which was her first ever motorsport race. This makes her performance in Sonora that bit more impressive and perfectly teases what we can look forward to seeing from her in the future.

There are two races to go before the Dakar again in January with the next round taking place in Argentina. Rebecca and the team will be looking to carry this positive momentum forwards both to the next race and Morocco after that as these events double up as opportunities to gain many more valuable points for the Championship but also as practice for the hardest event of them all, the infamous Dakar.

I, for one, cannot wait to see what happens next.