Dakar bike classes explained: what RallyGP, Rally2 and Original by Motul mean

The short answer

Dakar's bike entry is not one race. It is split into RallyGP, Rally2 and Original by Motul, and all three ride the same route on the same day.

RallyGP is the top class. It counts for the FIM World Rally-Raid Championship, it is where the factory teams and the most experienced riders sit, and the overall bike winner comes from it. Rally2 is the class below, run as the FIM World Rally-Raid Cup, for privateers and riders climbing the ladder. Original by Motul, once called Malle Moto, is the no assistance class, where the rider works on his own bike every night.

The hardware is not the dividing line. Both RallyGP and Rally2 run bikes up to 450cc. What changes is the rider's experience, the depth of the team behind him and, in Original by Motul, whether he gets any mechanical help at all. Dakar 2026 was the 48th edition, ran from 3 to 17 January from Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, and had 116 bikes on the entry list across a prologue and 13 stages.

RallyGP is a factory job, and the clock is brutal

Hero MotoSports, from Jaipur, is the Indian team at the sharp end. It ran Nacho Cornejo and Ross Branch in RallyGP at Dakar 2026 and Tobias Ebster in Rally2. Cornejo finished 7th overall at 1 hour 39 minutes 50 seconds behind the winner, Branch 8th at 2 hours 49 minutes 15 seconds, the team's first double top-10 at the rally.

Those gaps show what the class is. On stage 1, a 518 km day with a 305 km timed special, Branch set the fastest stage time and still finished the stage 7th because of a six-minute speeding penalty. Dakar polices speed limits by GPS, and a few seconds of carelessness through a slow zone costs more than a crash sometimes does.

Navigation is the other separator, and it is the same for everyone. There is no recce, no pacenotes and no map. Riders get a digital roadbook about 15 minutes before the start, with distances, compass headings, pictograms and warnings, and must pass within 10 metres of each waypoint for the system to validate it. Cornejo led stage 3 at the 41 km check, then crashed around the 140 km mark hard enough that his roadbook tablet had to be replaced.

Rally2 is the real ladder for Indian riders

Rally2 is where an Indian rider realistically arrives, and it is where India's best result came from. Harith Noah won the Rally2 class at Dakar 2024 on a TVS Sherco 450SEF Rally and finished 11th overall, the first Indian to win a Dakar class.

It is also where a rider proves he belongs in RallyGP. Hero's Ebster was runner-up in the Rally2 world cup in 2025. At the Rallye du Maroc in October 2026, Hero took six podiums and a stage win, with Michael Docherty scoring a stage podium on all six Rally2 days.

Original by Motul sits apart. Those riders cannot touch a team mechanic. Tools, spares and personal kit travel in a trunk that the organisers move between bivouacs, and the rider rebuilds the bike himself after a 400 km stage before sleeping.

The marathon stages add that misery for everyone. Assistance is banned for a pair of days, crews carry food and tents, and a breakdown means a night out in the desert instead of the bivouac.

So when you read that an Indian rider finished 11th at Dakar and won his class, both facts are true and neither contradicts the other. He beat everyone in Rally2 and he was 11th against the RallyGP factory riders on the same road.

Sources

• Hero MotoSports Team Rally, Dakar 2026 stage 13 report
• Hero MotoSports Team Rally, Dakar 2026 stage 1 report
• Hero MotoSports Team Rally, Dakar 2026 stage 3 report
• Hero MotoSports media page, Rallye du Maroc 2026
• DirtFish, a beginner's guide to the Dakar Rally
• Wikipedia, 2026 Dakar Rally
• Wikipedia, Harith Noah