2015 Honda CRF 450 Rally

The 2015 Dakar Team HRC.

Five riders will line up on the new factory Honda CRF450 RALLY; Joan Barreda (Spain, 31), Paulo Goncalves (Portugal, 35), Helder Rodrigues (Portugal, 35), Jeremias Israel (Chile, 33), and Laia Sanz (Spain, 28).

Joan Barreda, Paulo Goncalves and Helder Rodrigues have participated in several rounds of the 2014 FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship. This season, Paulo Goncalves, current World Champion, has won the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, the first round of the Championship, and Joan Barreda has won the Sealine Qatar Rally. Goncalves is currently in second place, and will be in the running for the title in Morocco. New additions to the team are Chilean Jeremias Israel and Dakar’s female-class winner Laia Sanz.

Team HRC’s aim is to win the Dakar; the most prestigious and gruelling off road motorcycle race in the world. An exceptional work bench for the bike, which subsequently will become tomorrow’s mass-production model.

Martino Bianchi Team HRC General Manager – “This new Team HRC has enormous potential. It combines the best virtues of different drivers for a winning team. We’ve shown that we are a winning team, and so we can only win “The Rally”. The Dakar rally it’s more than a race: it’s the mother of all rally-raids. It’s an adventure, and it’s a great challenge. The race 9,000 km and is full of traps, but the prestige for the winner is enormous. And that will be our main goal. We’ll start 2015 with the intention to win the Dakar, with our talented team with so many assets, and with a great bike.”CRF 450 Rally