When he takes off his helmet after the 492 km between Al-Ula and Ha’il, happiness lights up in the slanted eyes and beardless face of Edgar Canet Ardèvol (La Garriga, 2005), the youngest driver of the Dakar 2025, with only 19 years old and just one season running rally-raids. The rookie, signed in December as an official Red Bull KTM Factory rider, is surprising everyone: in just half a Dakar, Canet has risen tenth overall (leader in the Rally2 subcategory), after having achieved an absolute third place in the Prologue and two eighths, in the 3rd stage and the 5th this Thursday. Now it’s time to rest and regain strength.
-At last! Today I’m going as a VIP to the hotel –he jokes with The Vanguard in the Ha’il bivouac, about to go to the hotel with the KTM team. I will be able to rest well after having slept for two days in a tent and being up and down all day, it shows. The hardest thing about this first week is the number of hours we have been on the bike, more than 30. In the last Dakar they did 35 in total. That means it is being a very demanding edition. I’m happy, even though I feel more tired every day – says the man from La Garriga, who until now had only raced six days in a row in the Moroccan rally in October, in which he already amazed and attracted the attention of KTM: In the so-called Dakar dress rehearsal, with almost all the first swords, he had been 7th overall and 4th in one stage. Another outrage.
Things are going well and without risk. I would sign to make a ‘top 10’”
That’s when KTM was convinced that it had to be with the official team in the Dakar, and not with a satellite. “He could help us more by being with us, that was it. He is a very good rider, but we have to take care of him, so that he doesn’t overdo it,” Jordi Viladoms, in his 14th season as KTM sports director in the Dakar, tells this newspaper.
Canet has earned their trust for achieving much more than he could have imagined, even though he decided to run the Dakar not even half a year ago. It was his great dream as a child, when he fantasized about being like his idols, Nani Roma, or his training partners Sam Sunderland, Kevin Benavides or the absent Joan Barreda. Or like Marc Márquez, “an example of improvement”, with whom he trains in motocross, his school since he was a child.
Edgar Canet, during the third stage of the 2025 Dakar Rally.
For Edgar, life as a rider began at the age of 4, when he started “as a hobby with a 50cc KTM.” It came from his family. His father, Albert, is a motocross fan, and his maternal grandfather, Salvador Ardèvol, was a motocross racer. So he started competing at the age of six in the Catalan championship. In this specialty, pure speed, Canet has won four Spanish championships and one European championship. He decided to move from motocross to rally-raids at the end of 2023. “When I got my motorcycle driving license, I tried a race, the 1,000 Dunes of Morocco: I came second and decided to take my career towards rally-raids, I liked it.” a lot”.
And that was when he upset his godfather since the age of 11: Nani Roma. “When he found out that I wanted to run the Dakar this year he was very angry. He told me not to mention it, that it was very dangerous, that later. And he would do everything possible to keep me from running… But he saw that I was very serious and decided to help me.”
It helps us more being with KTM; “He is a very good driver, but we must stop him.”
Now Nani contemplates him with the satisfaction of a godfather, but also with the fear of a father who has seen his son become paraplegic in a motorcycle accident.
Edgar Canet continues his path: after today’s break, more gas to the donkey . There are eight stages left.
–Now the most feared thing will be that something happens out of my reach, whether it be a fall from a rock or breaking something on the motorcycle. But everything is going well and I don’t have to suffer – he points out, looking forward to reaching the finish line on the 17th.
–If I do the second week like I did the first I will be very happy. But I already am because of how it went. I see that in the future I will be prepared to fight with these guys in front…
–But he already does it!
–I am very happy, things are going well and without risk. He would finish 10th overall; It would be a very good result.
#Edgar #Canet #Dakar #prodigy
