Italian Baja – June 25th-28th, 2026
FIA World Baja Cup, round 4
OVERDRIVE RACING’S AKEEL AND DELAUNAY OVERCOME FIRST-STAGE ERROR TO COMPLETE DEMANDING ITALIAN BAJA
PORDENONE (ITALY) – Sunday, June 28: Overdrive Racing’s Dania Akeel and her French navigator Sébastien Delaunay continued their push for the 2026 FIA World Baja Cup crown with a strong finish to the Pordenone-based Italian Baja.
After picking up valuable points for winning the Prologue in their Jameel Motorsport-backed Toyota Hilux on Friday afternoon, the duo made a mistake around 15km into the opening stage of the fourth round of the Baja series on Saturday morning. As a result, they were forced to miss the rest of the first day’s action.
Overdrive Racing team technicians repaired the Toyota overnight and Akeel repaid them with a top 10 finish on the final stage to collect another valuable haul of points towards her title challenge.
Akeel said: “Some good memories, winning the Prologue. That was a first for me, so I enjoyed that a lot. We made some risky decisions on stage one and that didn’t work for us. Today’s stage was okay, a bit dusty and we started behind but we got some stage points today. We have to race six of the eight races this year and we have raced the first four so far. We are only racing two of the last four, so we are going to see a lot of points changing. It keeps the cup interesting to the end.”
Akeel and Delaunay arrived in northern Italy with a seven-point cushion in their respective FIA World Baja Cup standings after the opening three rounds of the series in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Greece.
Late route modifications saw the Prologue trimmed to 13.97km and the two days of action also reduced slightly. This resulted in the loss of 11.23 competitive kilometres in a revised total route of 652.39km.
Being the top seed and leader of the FIA World Baja Cup was an advantage for Akeel. She was the first on the road through the Prologue and avoided all the dust issues that affected her rivals. The Saudi posted the fastest time of 9min 53.6sec, 3.7 seconds quicker than her nearest rival, and opted to start the opening stage from first on the road. She also picked up six valuable championship points for winning the Prologue.
“What a start – our first ever Prologue victory! We were helped by starting up front with no dust but we were fast and clean, taking just the right amount of risk. My first World Cup Baja title was here in the T3 class in 2021, so good memories here. It’s a great place to race because the terrain is very diverse.”
Unfortunately, an accident after a mistake thwarted her progress through the opener and, as a result, Akeel was not able to start the second stage on Saturday afternoon. Hefty time penalties was the result on the stage that finished in Blessano di Basiliano.
Akeel said: “We had a good start and then I came to a really tight left-hand corner. Seb told me to take the parallel track because it looked a bit faster, but it turned out there was a wall blocking us from rejoining the course. Trying to get back, I went too fast and damaged the car. Both of us learned a lot today. The main lesson is to stay on the rally route and avoid taking alternative tracks and, if you do end up on another road, don’t rush to get back on to the course because you never know what you are going to find.”
Sunday’s shorter stage of 94.42km was run in reverse. It started from Dignano and was split into two sections by a short neutralisation zone, before heading to a finish in Vacile di Spilimbergo. The stage included a final 10km stretch that had never been used before.
Akeel finished ninth from an unfavourable starting position, just over three minutes behind the stage winner, to confirm a valuable finish on the gruelling event in northern Italy.
Action in the FIA World Baja Cup continues with the Teruel-based Baja Spain Aragón on July 23rd-26th.
Ends
For further information:
Jean-Marc Fortin (E-mail: jmf@overdriveracing.be), Overdrive S.A., rue de L’Enterprise 1, 4530 Villers-le-Bouillet, Belgium, Tel: + 32 475 762 391. www.overdriveracing.be, Facebook: Overdrive Racing, Twitter: @OverdriveToyota