Fabio Lottero, Italian rally driver based on Ibiza for more than ten years, has already started his countdown to participate for the first time in the Dakar Rally, in which he will compete in early 2023 in the motorcycle category. The transalpine rider, a native of Bordighera, a small town on the border with France, assures Diario de Ibiza that he breathes and feels like an Ibizan, since he considers the island of Ibiza as his foster home and his second homeland. That is why the Italian athlete, who will compete under Balearic federal license and attached to Ibiza Motor Club, with the support of Rutas World and the Consell de Ibiza, stresses that he feels “enormous pride” to defend the flag of the island of Ibiza in a competition that for him is “a dream come true”.
“For me to race in the Dakar Rally is a dream I have had since I was a child. When I was still very young, only eight years old, I used to get up in the early hours of the morning to watch the race highlights on Eurosport when most of my friends at that age didn’t even know what the rally was”, says Fabio Lottero, before adding: “I come from the world of cycling, which I did from the age of seven to fourteen, but I tried enduro bikes and I left the bike completely behind. When I got to know what motorcycles were, it was like love at first sight”.
Since then, Fabio Lottero declares that he has had to work hard to prepare himself to compete in the Dakar Rally, an event he will go to with the satisfaction of fighting to place Ibiza’s name as high as possible.
“I saw I had a chance to aspire to go to the Dakar”
“After leaving enduro and motorcycles for a long time for work reasons, three years ago I decided to start training again, and from then on, it was non-stop. I went to the Rally of Spain, the Baja Extremadura and Morocco. And there, in Morocco, another world opened up for me that I hadn’t known and I saw that there I had a chance to aspire to go to the Dakar. So I told myself that I had to try. And now I’ve been going full out for two years without stopping, because I knew what I had to do to make my dream come true. A dream that is also a double satisfaction for me because I can fulfill it while defending Ibiza, which feels like home for me”, explains the transalpine driver of the Ibiza Motor Club.
However, not everything in Fabio Lottero’s career has been a bed of roses, as he has had to manage coming from practically nothing to make a name for himself in the rally world.
“In the first races I had to pay for everything myself because I didn’t have any sponsorship or anything like that and it was all about working and working to be able to stand out. Then, when I participated in some bigger races, everything started to flow and now I have that issue well solved and I feel supported”, says Fabio Lottero, who also points out: “In the Dakar I will compete with a hybrid KTM bike that is between an enduro and a rally bike. I’ve already been testing it and I’ll have to make some modifications, but I’ll go to the Morocco Rally to test it thoroughly in a race situation to see if it holds up. And, if all goes well, it will be the bike I will ride in the Dakar 2023, but it will have a bigger tank, suspension and brakes, as well as being much better prepared”.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.