How CS Santosh became the first Indian to finish the Dakar Rally

CS Santosh became the first Indian to race and finish the Dakar Rally when he placed 36th on a KTM 450 Rally Replica at the 2015 edition in South America. That single result opened the door for every Indian rider who has lined up at Dakar since, from Aravind K P to Hero MotoSports teammates and, in 2024, Harith Noah's class win.

How he got there

Santosh did not start out chasing Dakar. He began racing with TVS in 2003 in motocross and dirt track, and went on to win two National Supercross titles and three National Dirt Track titles, along with wins at Raid de Himalaya and the Maruti Suzuki Desert Storm rally. His move into cross country rallying came at the 2013 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, where his bike caught fire and he suffered third degree burns. He went back in 2014, finished 9th, and that result earned him an invitation to Dakar 2015.

Three finishes, one best result

Santosh's first Dakar, in January 2015, covered a rally of 9,295 km and he finished 36th out of 168 starters, with KTM and KINI Red Bull Racing backing. He missed out in 2016 with mechanical trouble, then came back in 2017 to finish 47th as that year's only Indian finisher. His best Dakar result came in 2018, when he finished 34th in the bike category and became the first Indian to complete the rally three times, by then racing for Hero MotoSports.

The crash that nearly ended it

Santosh spent six seasons on Hero MotoSports' Dakar programme before that partnership ended in late 2022. The low point came during the 2021 Dakar, his seventh attempt at the rally, when he crashed about 135 km into stage 4 and suffered a head injury that put him in hospital in Riyadh. He has said he lost two to three years of memory after the crash and had to relearn basic motor function, with help from the Red Bull Athlete Performance Centre in Austria.

Back on a Royal Enfield, aiming at Dakar again

Santosh's comeback is now built around Royal Enfield rather than KTM or Hero. He tested the first Himalayan prototype back in 2012 and 2013, and runs his own Big Rock Motopark training facility, which has worked with the brand. In October 2024 he made his competitive return at the Rallye TT Cuenca in Spain, a two day, 400 km Baja format rally, riding a rally spec Royal Enfield Himalayan 450. He finished 30th of 38 riders in the bike category. He has said his plan is to do more Baja rallies before another Dakar attempt, with a different aim this time: staying in the fight rather than chasing a result.

For Indian riders who watch Dakar every January and wonder who from India has actually raced it, Santosh's record is where that story starts. He is still the only Indian to have finished the rally three times, and his 34th place from 2018 remains the best Dakar finish by an Indian rider on a motorcycle.

Sources

• CS Santosh
• CS Santosh on his rally return, Dakar goals with Royal Enfield
• CS Santosh: The first Indian to tame the Dakar Rally