Al Rajhi tops Hilux 1-2-3, Lategan leads, Bikes trade wins
South African built and run Toyotas have taken complete control of Dakar 2025 Cars race. Saudi home hero Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk led Overall leaders Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings’s Gazoo machine and Argentine duo Juan Cruz Yacopini and Daniel Oliveras home in a dominant 1-2-3 on Wednesday’s stage 4. Lategan now leads Al Rajhi overall.
The bike race has meanwhile commenced its regular series of pendulum swings as riders who struggled on Tuesday benefited late starting positions on Wednesday as they took advantage of the previous day’s frontrunners suffering the penalty opening the road. Overall leader Daniel Sanders took the day for KTM ahead of Honda man Tosha Schareina and Hero rider José Ignacio Cornejo Hero.
Al Rajhi took the Wednesday’s stage 4
The focus shifted to endurance for the first half of the marathon stage on Wednesday. With no outside assistance, car crews can only help each other on the cars at the overnight bivouac. Bike overnight service is limited to just 30 minutes for riders to work on their Rally GP and an hour for Rally 2 machines. So self-preservation was the order of the day on a route that started in volcanic terrain before tackling the canyons of Al Ula en route to that remote overnight bivouac.
There was overnight drama when Sébastien Loeb and Fabian Lurquin’s Dacia Sandrider failed its FIA inspection after rolling on Tuesday. The French WRC legend’s dream of winning the Dakar is over for another year as he joins Ford star Carlos Sainz and lady Hero Lala Sanz’ Century on the list of cars to exit after failing that chassis structure integrity test.
Schroder’s budget WCT Amarok starred on stage 4
Toyota four, Al-Rajhi, Lategan, former Dakar bike heroes Toby Price and Sam Sunderland and stage Chrono 48H stage winner, Rokas Baciuska and Oriol Mena’s Hiluxes led Daniel Schröder and South African Henry Köhne’s Kyalami-built WCT Amarok in a shock fifth. Nasser Al Attiyah lost time in his Dacia Sandrider, while Tuesday winner Saood Variawa’s Toyota and Ekstrom’s Ford also slipped back. Then Price and were left stranded without any more spare tyres.
Al Rajhi led overall leader Lategan and Argentine duo Juan Cruz Yacopini and Daniel Oliveras home from Prokop and Krotov. Mathieu Serradori and Loic Minaudier, and SA crew Brian Baragwanath and Leonard Cremer’s SA built Century CR7s sandwiched the penalised Guthrie and Mattias Ekström and Emil Bergkvist’s Ford Raptors ahead of Lucas Moraes and Armand Monleon and Giniel de Villiers German Dirk von Zitzewitz’ Gazoo Hiluxes in tenth and eleventh.
Late starter Sanders won Stage 4 in the Bikes
Schroder and Köhene soldiered home 14th in the Amarok, SA Toyota crew Guy Botterill and Dennis Murphy were 17th, while Aliyyah Koloc and Sebastien Delaunay were flirting with the top 30 in the best of the Red-Lined REVOs. Lategan did not post a time at the penultimate waypoint. Was it a glitch, or did he miss the point? Overall, Cars day winner Al Rajhi has now moved up to second, just under six minutes behind Lategan, with Ekstrom now third from the impressive Serradori, Moraes and Guthrie.
Bike leader Sanders’ KTM, Honda men Tosha Schareina, Adrien van Beveren’s Tuesday bad luck, and South Africa’s leading privateer Cox plummeting down the order after collecting a six minute speeding penalty on Tuesday, promised to play into their hands, as they started well back on Wednesday. It was however American Mason Klein who led early on aboard his exotic Kove 450, from Sanders, Schareina. Klein and Sanders then swapped the lead for the next hundred kilometres with Schareina.
Ross Branch sits third in Dakar 2025
Ross Branch was up to fourth, but lost some 20 minutes in the penultimate sector, while Sanders powered ahead to win and open up his overall lead. Schareina rode home 15 seconds adrift in second, while Cornejo popped up in third from van Beveren, Gonçalves, Rally 2 winner Tobias Ebster and Cox. Branch was not alone in losing time up front en route to eleventh. He still led Benavides, Brabec, Howes and Tuesday winner Santolino’s Sherco, while SA Rally 2 hero Mike Docherty also lost half an hour.
The upshot is that Daniel Sanders’ KTM now leads Tosha Schareina’s Honda by 13 minutes with Ross Branch third on his Hero, a similar gap behind. Howes, Brabec and van Beveren follow, with Cox tenth, Rally 2 leader Canet 11th and Docherty third in Rally 2 in 16th. Compatriot Arron Mare is 26th, while Dwain Barnard was 60th and Willem Avenant 105th.
The swings and roundabouts of Dakar now move forward to 428 km run from the Marathon Bivouac to Hail, deep in the Saudi desert on Thursday.
