CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team Ends Yamaha’s Long-Standing Reign in Rally-raid

Looking at past results from global rally raid competitions, one name consistently dominates the winners’ list – Yamaha. Since 2009, when the quad category was separated from motorcycles in the Dakar Rally, all first-place finishes have gone to the Yamaha Raptor 700. However, CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team had been closing the gap for some time, and while it’s now impossible to rewrite the history of Dakar’s quad winners – as quads are no longer allowed to compete – the story at other championship stages has already been changed.

Even in the Dakar Rally, Antanas Kanopkinas made a mark in 2024 by finishing fifth in the quad category with the CFMOTO CFORCE 1000 – the only non-Yamaha vehicle to reach the finish line. He became the first to complete the rally on a CFMOTO quad, leaving a lasting impression before the quad class was officially closed at Dakar.

Just like in Dakar, Yamaha machines had been dominant elsewhere, too – until a turning point came at the final stage of the 2024 World Rally-Raid Championship in Morocco. After an intense battle with Kamil Wisniewski, Kanopkinas claimed victory with a 40-minute lead. This win ended Yamaha's monopoly in the quad category and marked CFMOTO’s first-ever victory in a world championship. In other words, for the first time, the top podium spot was taken by a racer not riding a Yamaha. While individual stages have been won in the past by quads from Can-Am, Honda, Polaris, or Suzuki, none of them managed to secure an overall event victory.

“For many years, we entered races with the goal of simply reaching the finish line and learning something new – both as a team and in terms of improving our quads. After every finish, we spent a lot of time analyzing mistakes and figuring out how we could improve. As strange as it may sound, this victory came as a byproduct of that process. Of course, we’ve always aimed for the win, but we try to keep things realistic. We’re up against very strong competitors with highly competitive machines, which only makes our achievements even more satisfying,” Kanopkinas reflected on the results.

The victory in Morocco wasn’t a coincidence. After that race, the team took a break for the off-season and returned to the track at the first quad stage of this year’s world championship in Abu Dhabi. Once again, the team climbed the podium – Kanopkinas claimed first place, and his teammate, French rider Gaetan Martinez, secured silver. That meant two CFMOTO quads stood among the top three.

The team’s next race is set for May, in the South African leg of the championship. It will be the first time the riders compete in this country, but as Kanopkinas shared, their goals remain the same: “It would be easy to get carried away and say we’re racing solely for the win now, but over the years our team has matured enough to understand that every race is a new chapter. Of course, we’re hoping for the best, but we’re ready, as always, to give it everything we’ve got – and most importantly, to have a great time doing it.”