Dakar veteran Viladoms calls time on rally career

The Spaniard made his debut in the event back in 2006 with KTM, back when the Dakar was based in West Africa, and secured his first stage win the following year.

Viladoms would finish the rally for the first time in 2009, its first year held in South America, and would then secure a career-best finish of second behind KTM teammate Marc Coma in the 2014 race.

However, the 36-year-old struggled in 2016, suffering with a fever en route to a lowly 17th place, and has now declared last month's rally his last as an active competitor.

“I am very happy about the experiences I’ve had in my active career but now is the right time for me to make a change," said Viladoms, who finished as runner-up in the FIM Cross-Country Rallies series in 2012.

"After ten years of rally sport I’m completely healthy and very motivated for the new tasks. My goal is to pass on my experiences and knowledge to our younger generation and make it accessible to all the riders in the team.”  

Viladoms now takes up the role of Sport Manager at KTM, which secured its 15th successive Dakar bikes class title earlier this year courtesy of Toby Price.

“The recent months and especially the Dakar Rally has shown how extremely important Jordi Viladoms is for our boys and the new generation in the team," said KTM Rally Manager Alex Doringer.

"In addition, his home country of Spain offers perfect training and the distance to Morocco is also not far from his home base.

"We are losing one of our best riders but we are also gaining very important strength in the other side of our team.”