Unbeaten and seemingly unbeatable, Daniel Sanders has continued his unprecedented motorcycling year by becoming the first Australian to lift the World Rally-Raid Championship after yet another triumph in Portugal.
The 31-year-old Dakar Rally winner, known to all throughout the sport by his nickname "Chucky", completed his remarkable triumph on Sunday by sealing a fourth straight victory in the fourth leg of the five-race championship.
Sanders described winning all four races so far -- in the prestigious Dakar, the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, the South African Rally and now the Ultimate Rally-Raid Portugal -- as "a dream come true".
Nobody has ever before dominated the championships in such a fashion, with the racer from Three Bridges, Victoria, now hoping to complete the 'perfect' season by also successfully defending the Morocco Rally next month, the race that kicked off off his extraordinary run of successes last year.
"It's a dream you think about when you're a kid, no matter what sport you do, but I chose motorbikes, and it worked out really well," beamed Sanders, who won four of the week's six stages in Portugal this week on his Red Bull KTM, including the prologue, to win by 3mins 40sec from Spain's Honda rider Tosha Schareina.
After finishing second in Sunday's final stage - a 287km loop around Lisbon - behind his Argentinian teammate Luciano Benavides, Sanders could celebrate wrapping up the world title.
He's now on an unsurpassable 113 points, a massive 44 clear of Benavides and 47 ahead of both Schareina and American Honda ace Ricky Brabec.
"The race here has gone so well, and the bike has been perfect," said Sanders, thanking his team.
"It's very rare to have this sort of consistency in rally as it's often so unpredictable. But up to now, we've put in a perfect season, and we'll still be aiming to carry that into Morocco.
"It's still all sinking in really. I'm happy to get the world championship here in Portugal and, hopefully, there's a lot more to come."
Sanders, the first Aussie to win the crown after Toby Price finished runner-up in 2023, has been untouchable since winning the Dakar Rally at the start of the year.
He's set records for the most RallyGP stages won in a single season -- 15 out of 31 -- and an overall landmark of 23.
