The Qatari, a five times Dakar winner, was only eighth fastest on the 400km special stage from the port of Yanbu on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast to Al-Ula but ended the day seven seconds clear of Toyota’s Seth Quintero. American Quintero won the stage one minute and 42 seconds ahead of last year’s overall runner-up Henk Lategan of South Africa.
Saudi Arabia’s 2025 champion Yazeed Al-Rajhi was third for the Japanese manufacturer’s Overdrive customer team after losing nearly half an hour on Sunday. The Dakar began in 1978 as a race from Paris across the Sahara to the Senegalese capital but switched to South America in 2009 for security reasons and then Saudi Arabia in 2020. It is also the first round of the World Rally-Raid Championship.
–Reuters–
