The 2025 Dakar is past the halfway point and it is now that cars are starting to suffer and pilots are feeling the strain that we can start to see who will come out on top at the end of the race. Held in Saudi Arabia for the sixth time, this edition is additionally the first round of the 2025 World Rally-Raid Championship, so the results will be important in a global scale.
Yesterday Nasser Al-Attiyah managed to get first place in a milestone victory for the new Dacia Sandrider. This car is new to the race and was debuted by Nasser, Sébastien Loeb, and Cristina Gutiérrez finally earning a partial victory for the first time and encouraging its drivers. But, despite their best efforts the win did not mena that they shot up to the top of the leaderboard, that honor will, for now, belong to Yazeed Al-Rajhi, who has overtaken previous leader Henk Lategan in the top spot.
South African Henk Lategan was hoping that this edition would bring his first Dakar title, and while he is still in the running, the competition for first place just got more intense than before and he will now have to fight even harder to climb the leader board.
The winner of the nith stage of the Dakar
Nasser tackled the stage from Riyadh to Haradh, a total of 357 kilometers of racing, in 2 hours and 52 minutes. The five-time Dakar champion not only managed to claimed his first stage win of this edition of the rally but did so with a new and untested car, which was an impressive feat that highlights his experience and driving prowess. His victory was as hard fought as impressive, he narrowly beat Guillaume de Mevius and Mathieu Baumel by just 2 minutes and 47 seconds.
The other two Dacia drivers, Cristina Gutiérrez and Pablo Moreno, also ended the day in a respectable eighth place, just 14 minutes and 26 seconds behind the winner. Cristina and Pablo have been steadily racking up mileage while also standing by to assist teammates Nasser and Edouard Boulanger if needed and are also proving themselves in this harsh terrain with the new car model.
The Dacia victory means that tomorrow Nassar will have to go first, which many do not believe to be an advantage as he will encounter all the pitfalls first, but his experience in previous editions will undoubtedly work in his favor. Despite this, most believe that his chance of winning a second stage from first place are slim to none, but we will have to wait and see.
In declarations at the end of the day he stated that “It’s been a great day. I’m happy to win the stage, and now, with three days to go, we have to stay focused because it’s all wide open. It was a clean stage with no mistakes, and our Dacia Sandrider was absolutely flying.”
We will have to tune in tomorrow to see if his performance continues or if we will have a new winner and an entirely reconfigured board.
2025 Dakar Rally Standings (after Stage 9):
- Yazeed Al-Rajhi / Timo Gottschalk– Overdrive Racing – 45h 06′ 54”
- Henk Lategan / Brett Cummings – Toyota Gazoo Racing – +7′ 09”
- Mattias Ekström / Emil Bergkvist – Ford M-Sport – +24′ 50”
- Nasser Al-Attiyah / Edouard Boulanger – The Dacia Sandriders – +25′ 21”
- Mitchell Guthrie / Kellon Walch – Ford M-Sport – +56′ 28”
- Mathieu Serradori / Loic Minaudier – Century Racing – +1h 06′ 52”
- Juan Cruz Yacopini / Daniel Oliveras – Overdrive Racing – +1h 44′ 41”
- Seth Quintero / Dennis Zenz – Toyota Gazoo Racing – +1h 46′ 07”
- Joao Ferreira / Filipe Palmeiro – X-raid Mini JCW – +2h 11′ 02”
- Brian Baragwanath / Leonard Cremer – Century Racing – +2h 31′ 14”
