BISHA, Saudi Arabia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 4, 2025--
Hero MotoSports Team Rally, the motorsport team of the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles and scooters, Hero MotoCorp, has kicked off its campaign at the 47th edition of the Dakar Rally. This is the ninth consecutive appearance of Hero MotoSports at the world’s toughest race.
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Competing with a stellar line-up of three Rally GP class riders - Ross Branch, Sebastian Buhler, and Nacho Cornejo - the team started the rally on an optimistic note by finishing a short, yet challenging 29 km Prologue stage.
Defending FIM World Champion Ross Branch stormed to an impressive second-place finish, setting the tone right for the team's campaign. His teammate Sebastian Bühler crossed the finish line clocking the 9 th fastest time, while Nacho Cornejo finished at the 20th position – all three of them competing in the Rally GP class.
335 vehicles made it to the start line of Dakar 2025, after successfully completing the administrative and technical scrutineering in the previous days. There are 580 competitors representing 52 nationalities at this Dakar. 134 of them are on motorbikes, which include 21 top-tier riders in the Rally GP class, and another 113 competing in Rally 2.
The weather at Bisha has been unfavourable so far, with strong winds and sandstorms making Dakar 2025 very challenging for the competitors at the bivouac, even before the official start!
Dakar 2025 which started today with a Prologue will continue for 12 stages spanning 7,700 kilometers across the vast Arabian desert. For the first time, FIM and FIA vehicles will go on separate courses across almost a staggering 45% of the overall distance. New and upgraded challenges await the competitors, including the return of the 48-hour Chrono stage - a challenging two-day effort where competitors are forced to shut off their engines at sunset, and survive on their own in secluded areas set up in the middle of the desert.
Stage 1 will be a 500 km loop exploring the desert south of Bisha. Except for sand, competitors will be racing on all sorts of surfaces including rocky and stony surfaces.
For more information:
www.heromotocorp.com| FB:/HeroMotoCorpIndia| Twitter:@HeroMotoCorp|IG:@HeroMotoCorp
Follow the team:
www.heromotosports.com| FB:/HeroMotoSports| IG:@Heromotosports
Hero MotoSports team at Dakar Rally 2025 (Photo: Business Wire)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel filed a federal lawsuit challenging a Biden administration decision to block Nippon's proposed $15 billion acquisition of the Pittsburgh company and said that the head of the Steelworkers union and a rival steelmaker worked together to scuttle the buyout.
Biden said Friday that U.S. companies producing a large amount of steel need to "keep leading the fight on behalf of America’s national interests,” though Japan, where Nippon is based, is a strong ally.
In separate lawsuits filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, the steelmakers allege that it was a political decision made by the Biden administration that had no rational legal basis.
“Nippon Steel and U. S. Steel have engaged in good faith with all parties to underscore how the Transaction will enhance, not threaten, United States national security, including by revitalizing communities that rely on American steel, bolstering the American steel supply chain, and strengthening America’s domestic steel industry against the threat from China," the companies said in a prepared statement Monday.
Nippon Steel had promised to invest $2.7 billion in U.S. Steel’s aging blast furnace operations in Gary, Indiana, and Pennsylvania’s Mon Valley. It also vowed not to reduce production capacity in the United States over the next decade without first getting U.S. government approval.
Biden on Friday decided to stop the Nippon takeover — after federal regulators deadlocked on whether to approve it — because “a strong domestically owned and operated steel industry represents an essential national security priority. ... Without domestic steel production and domestic steel workers, our nation is less strong and less secure," he said in a statement.
While administration officials have said the decision was unrelated to Japan's relationship with the U.S. — this is the first time a U.S. president has blocked a merger between a U.S. and Japanese firm.
Biden departs the White House in just a few weeks.
The president's decision to block the deal comes after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS, failed to reach consensus on the possible national security risks of the deal last month, and sent a long-awaited report on the merger to Biden. He had 15 days to reach a final decision.
In a separate lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania on the same day, the companies accused steel-making rival Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. and its CEO, Lourenco Goncalves, in coordination with David McCall, the head of the U.S. Steelworkers union, of “engaging in a coordinated series of anticompetitive and racketeering activities” to block the deal.
In 2023 before U.S. Steel accepted the buyout offer from Nippon, Cleveland-Cliffs offered to buy U.S. Steel for $7 billion. U.S. Steel turned down the offer and later accepted a nearly $15 billion all-cash offer from Nippon Steel, which is the deal that Biden nixed Friday.
The companies allege that Goncalves, in collusion with the U.S. Steelworkers, maneuvered to prevent any party other than Cleveland-Cliffs from acquiring U.S. Steel and to damage the Pittsburgh manufacturer’s ability to compete.
Neither the Steelworkers nor Ohio's Ohio’s Cleveland-Cliffs responded immediately to requests by The Associated Press for comment.
Nippon and U.S. Steel said in the lawsuit that they submitted three draft national security agreements to CFIUS in the fall to address any concerns.
The companies said in their lawsuit that CFIUS was told not to offer any counterproposals or hold discussions with them. Nippon and US Steel argue that the review process was manipulated so that the outcome would support a decision they say Biden had already made.
The companies said that President Biden used “undue influence to advance his political agenda.”
Nippon, however, will face an incoming administration that has also vowed to block the deal.
President-elect Donald Trump last month underscored his intention to block the deal, and pledged to use tax incentives and tariffs to strengthen the iconic American steelmaker.
Shortly after the lawsuits were filed, Trump cemented that stance on his Truth Social platform.
“Why would they want to sell U.S. Steel now when Tariffs will make it a much more profitable and valuable company?” the post said. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have U.S. Steel, once the greatest company in the World, lead the charge toward greatness again? It can all happen very quickly!”
Shares of United States Steel Corp. rose 4% before the opening bell Monday.
FILE - This April 26, 2010, file photo shows the United States Steel logo outside the headquarters building in downtown Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
FILE - A staff enters doorway next to Nippon Steel logo at the company's Kashima Plant in Kashima, Japan on Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill, File)
FILE - This is a portion of US Steel's Edgar Thomson Works in Braddock, Pa., on Sunday, Apr., 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
FILE - This is a portion of US Steel's Edgar Thomson Works in Braddock, Pa., on Sunday, Apr., 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
