Hero MotoSports Team Rally Secures Double Top-10 Finish at Dakar 2026
8,000 km
5,000 km
115
What Happened
Hero MotoSports Team Rally, the motorsport team of the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer Hero MotoCorp, completed the 48th edition of the Dakar Rally 2026 with an impressive double top-10 finish. Riders Nacho Cornejo and Ross Branch secured 7th and 8th place overall respectively, a historic milestone for the team. The rally featured 13 gruelling stages across the Arabian desert, covering nearly 8,000 kilometres with 5,000 kilometres of timed stages.
The team's Hero 450 Rally bike completed the entire Dakar without a single technical issue, highlighting Hero MotoCorp's engineering capability. Despite challenges including a speeding penalty for Branch and a crash forcing Tobias Ebster's exit, both Cornejo and Branch remained in the top 10 throughout the rally. They scored valuable championship points: Cornejo with 14 points and Branch with 12 points.
“Dakar 2026 is done and dusted, and we are safely at the finish in Yanbu after an intense rally filled with challenges, highs, and lows. What matters most is that every single person in this team gave 100 percent from start to finish and fought relentlessly for the result.”
7th and 8th
Nacho Cornejo and Ross Branch achieved Hero MotoSports' best-ever Dakar Rally result.
Why this matters
This result demonstrates Hero MotoCorp's engineering reliability and growing competitiveness in the world's toughest rally, building momentum for the season ahead.
Terms in This Story
- Dakar Rally
- An annual off-road endurance rally race, considered one of the toughest motorsport events in the world.
- Marathon-refuge stage
- A stage where riders spend the night in the desert without any mechanical support, relying only on themselves.
- Rally GP
- The top category in the Dakar Rally for professional motorcycle riders.
- Rally2
- A secondary category in the Dakar Rally for less experienced or amateur riders.
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