Brp

Brazilian Rodrigo Luppi de Oliveira made a remarkable Dakar debut in 2022 at the age of 45. 6th in the T4 category in Jeddah, the Can-Am South Racing driver was on the podium for half the twelve days of racing and even achieved a debut victory on stage 5. For two days after this feat, he was at the top of the provisional standings ahead of the T4 category leaders. But his Dakar performance isn’t that surprising when you look at the fast-rising rookie’s recent past. Making his competition debut in 2019 at the wheel of an SSV, the man from São Paulo won his category on the Rally dos Sertoes in 2020 by finishing 2nd overall! 3rd in his category the following year, he then decided to go international to prepare for his first Dakar. On the 2021 Rallye du Maroc, supported by his compatriot Maykel Justo, who already had ten Dakars under his belt, the Brazilian finished second in T4 despite a transmission problem that cost him around 20 minutes. At the Dakar a few weeks later, he ran into similar problems but still managed to finish in 6th position. Luppi was due to make an appearance in Morocco on the third round of the W2RC but, held back on business, sent his 18 year old son instead. Turns out racing is in the family genes, with Junior accredited with winning stage 2 before receiving a time penalty for speeding. It’ll be interesting to see which out of the two comes out on top at the 2023 Dakar and quite how far both of them can finish up the leader board…