Fia motorsport

French Historic Rally Team: Top Indian rally driver Sanjay Takale returned home from Saudi Arabia after creating motorsports history as the first Indian driver to finish the 2025 Dakar Rally in the Classic cars category. This groundbreaking achievement puts Sanjay Takale in a rare club of Indians who finished Dakar in their maiden attempt.

Takale returned to the sounds of drums and was garlanded by a huge crowd that danced and shouted slogans at the Pune airport and later attended a reception in his honour hosted by motorsports fans and friends on Sunday.

Along with French co-driver Maxime Raud, the duo represented the Compagnie Saharienne team at the Dakar Classic cars section, a Regularity TSD event. He finished fifth in the final stage with zero penalty points to cap his Dakar journey of 14 stages, which got him an Overall 18th position among 96 cars that took part and a creditable 11th in his class.