The Monster Energy Honda HRC team tackled stage two of the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge today with a looping course around the city of Mezaira’a which sits on the doorstep to the Rub’ al Khali, or more commonly known as the Empty Quarter.
Covering approximately 650,000 square kilometres across the Arabian Peninsula, the vast undulating sand dunes made up most of the 228km special as the riders made their way close to the Saudi Arabian border.
As the top two from stage one, Tosha Schareina and his teammate Ricky Brabec faced the formidable challenge of opening the stage today. Schareina did a commendable job staying in front, but by the time he crossed the finish line, an exhausted Schareina had lost 9’17” to stage winner Daniel Sanders, despite gaining 1’18” in bonus time. His seventh place result pushed Schareina down to third overall, trailing Sanders, the new leader, by 2’ 43”.
After catching up to Schareina on the special stage, Brabec was satisfied with his performance, focusing on minimising time lost and avoiding risks in the challenging mountainous dunes. Although he finished just ahead of Schareina in the stage results, his strong ride kept him within striking distance of the overall podium, with only three minutes separating him from Sanders at the top.
While Adrien Van Beveren’s rally start hasn’t been ideal, today he made up for it. Starting further down the field, he was able to take advantage of the clear tracks ahead and once he reached his preferred dunes, he increased his pace and finished the day with the third-fastest time. With the Frenchman able to adapt to the challenging conditions, which allowed him to overcome the early setbacks, the 2023 winner is back to being a serious contender in the days ahead as he makes up for lost ground in the fight for the top spot.
Fifth-placed Skyler Howes had a stronger performance on stage two thanks to a crucial adjustment to the setup of his Honda CRF450 RALLY. The modification allowed him to sustain a fast pace through both the dunes and dry lake beds and he’ll be aiming to carry this momentum forward into the remaining stages.
As one of the most gruelling parts of the 2025 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, tomorrow’s 338km marathon stage will take riders out of Mezaira’a towards the marathon camp at Al Qua’a. They’ll hope for a straightforward stage but the vast expanse of dunes will push everyone to the absolute limit before arriving at the overnight stop where they are not allowed any mechanical assistance from the team and therefore have to rely on their own skills and equipment to repair any mechanical issues before stage four the day after.
Ruben Faria
General Manager
It was a good stage for us today with Tosha and Ricky doing a brilliant job with the navigation. Tosha did more than 150km alone opening the stage and after that Ricky joined him. It was two different kinds of navigation today, the first part of the stage until the refuelling was easier to follow for the opening rider as the dunes were smaller and so Tosha did a really good job and didn’t lose too much time in that section. But after the refuelling there were a lot of broken dunes and so it was much more difficult to open. The riders, which included Adrien and Skyler, started further back and of course won time. Their pace was not perfect and they didn’t gain the amount of time we expected but Adrien did a good job to finish third. Tomorrow is an important day as it’s the first part of the marathon stage, the riders will need to push but also ride smart because in the afternoon they won’t have any mechanical assistance.
The marathon is stages three and four, so in two days they will arrive back to the bivouac and we hope with a good result. It’s normal here in Abu Dhabi that when you start in front you lose time, so let’s hope that with our strategy we can arrive to the final finish line on stage five as the leaders.
Ricky Brabec 9
Stage: 6th Overall: 4th
Stage two was good, I knew after yesterday’s result there was going to be a big task up front as I was second on the road today. Tosha won yesterday and I think he opened every single kilometre today except for maybe two when I caught him. But he did a really good job today and I think we both did the best we could to push without making any mistakes and to not lose too much time. The navigation was tricky at some points but overall I think we’re both happy to be at the finish of stage two.
Skyler Howes 10
Stage: 5th Overall: 7th
Stage two was much better for me, we made another adjustment to the bike yesterday and I felt much more confident today. I really felt like I was riding more like myself today, I had two more mistakes out there so if I could just stop those I’d probably have had a pretty good stage. My feelings are high, I’m actually really stoked as I’m happy with how I rode today. I’ve just got to minimise those mistakes and keep plugging forward. I’m really enjoying the stages, whoever laid out these routes chose a really good way through the dunes, this morning was really fast on the lake beds and then after refuelling there were a lot more dunes but the flow was really nice. I’m having a great time on my Honda.
Adrien Van Beveren 42
Stage: 3rd Overall: 6th
Today has been better than yesterday I would say. I started with good tracks to follow and although I didn’t feel so fast at the beginning with many chotts and not that many dunes, by the second part of the stage there were a lot of dunes so I could push better on a terrain I enjoy. Today it was also quite cloudy so the visibility was different, but it was the same for everybody. I’m happy I gave my best today.
Tosha Schareina 68
Stage: 7th Overall: 3rd
I’m so exhausted after opening the stage today. Around the 150km mark, Ricky caught up with me and we were pushing together until the finish line. We knew from the beginning that we could lose bit of time today, but I think we did a good job and now we will turn our attention to tomorrow.
Rally GP Result – Stage 2
Pos. Rider Num Nation Team Time/Gap
1 Sanders Daniel AUS KTM Factory Racing Team 03:01:35
2 Cornejo Florimo José Ignacio 11 CHI Hero Motorsports Team Rally + 03:59
3 Van Beveren Adrien 42 FRA Monster Energy Honda HRC + 05:07
4 Benavides Luciano 1 ARG KTM Factory Racing Team + 05:37
5 Howes Skyler 10 USA Monster Energy Honda HRC + 07:12
6 Brabec Ricky 9 USA Monster Energy Honda HRC + 07:27
7 Schareina Tosha 68 SPA Monster Energy Honda HRC + 09:17
Rally GP Provisional Standings After Stage 2
Pos. Rider Num Nation Team Time/Gap
1 Sanders Daniel AUS KTM Factory Racing Team 06:09:02
2 Benavides Luciano 1 ARG KTM Factory Racing Team + 02:25
3 Schareina Tosha 68 SPA Monster Energy Honda HRC + 02:43
4 Brabec Ricky 9 USA Monster Energy Honda HRC + 03:00
5 Cornejo Florimo José Ignacio 11 CHI Hero Motorsports Team Rally + 03:42
6 Van Beveren Adrien 42 FRA Monster Energy Honda HRC + 06:34
7 Howes Skyler 10 USA Monster Energy Honda HRC + 09:14
