{"id":21958,"date":"2026-01-05T07:08:03","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T05:08:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/al-rajhi-endures-tough-dakar-rally-start-in-saudi-arabia\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:32:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:32:57","slug":"al-rajhi-endures-tough-dakar-rally-start-in-saudi-arabia","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/al-rajhi-endures-tough-dakar-rally-start-in-saudi-arabia\/","title":{"rendered":"Al-Rajhi endures tough Dakar Rally start in Saudi Arabia"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The Saudi driver finished nearly 29 minutes off the lead, which was claimed by Belgian Guillaume de Mevius in an X-Raid Mini. Qatar&#8217;s five-time winner Nasser Al-Attiyah sits second, just 40 seconds behind, with Czech Martin Prokop third and Sweden&#8217;s Mattias Ekstrom fourth.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In the motorcycle category, Spaniard Edgar Canet continues to lead KTM teammate Daniel Sanders, while American Ricky Brabec is third on a Honda. Botswana&#8217;s Ross Branch was quickest on the stage but dropped back after a six-minute speeding penalty.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21959,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-21958","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Defending champion, Yazeed Al-Rajhi endured a tough start to the Dakar Rally, penalised 16 minutes for missing a waypoint and speeding on Sunday's first full stage in Saudi Arabia","published_date":"2026-01-05 00:00:00","news_description":"Defending champion, Yazeed Al-Rajhi endured a tough start to the Dakar Rally, penalised 16 minutes for missing a waypoint and speeding on Sunday's first full stage in Saudi Arabia","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25424,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21958\/revisions\/25424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=21958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}