It’s early days in Safari Rally Kenya, the third round of the FIA World Rally Championship with just two stages and 12.91km run on Thursday, but it was Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja heading the score sheets in their Hyundai i20 N, 2.4 seconds ahead of Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston in their Toyota GR Yaris.

Katsuta out braked himself in stage two, sliding through a field and threading his Yaris between a pumphouse and an irrigation system, losing a handful of seconds.

“I’m very happy to be back in Kenya. It’s going to be a big challenge, more than in previous years, but I try to do my best. The second stage was already quite challenging after the rain; it was hard to judge which corners were slippery and I went quite wide at one point, but I’m still here. We could have this situation in many stages during the weekend, so it was a good reminder of what can happen. Tomorrow with some proper stages I’m sure we will see a lot of drama, but I feel comfortable with the car and just need to stay calm and be patient”, Katsuta said.

After taking a pounding in the media after his lacklustre Swedish performance, M-Sport Ford’s Gregoire Munster/Louis Louka lie in third position, 0.2 seconds behind his Japanese rival.

Kalle Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen – double Safari winners – are a further 0.4 seconds adrift with the championship leader Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin lying in fifth despite winning the opening super special stage by 1.5 seconds.

Josh McErlean and Eoin Treacy won the rookie battle, ending sixth with Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen trailing behind by one second; first to seventh is covered by 9.8 seconds as can be expected with minimal timed running.

Thierry Neuville suffered a technical issue in stage two after a wild two-wheeled moment and lies in eighth place overall, 19.7 seconds behind Tanak.

There was drama for Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria who failed to get to the start of SS2 after their Hyundai’s engine refused to fire up after the re-group.

Kajetan Kajetanowicz leads WRC2 in his Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 debut with Oliver Solberg lurking 1.3 seconds behind.

There were comical scenes at the end of the opening stage when drivers either refused to give an end of stage interview or spoke in their native tongue in protest against the FIA’s swearing clampdown and Adrien Fourmaux’ s €10k fine on Rally Sweden.

The action resumes on Friday morning with the first of the day’s six stages. The biggest challenge will be the 31.40km Camp Moran test – the longest of the rally – which opens the morning and afternoon loops.

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Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin lost the lead of Rally Sweden twice, once to Takamoto Katsuta and once to Ott Tänak, but by the time the crews rolled into the stop control on the final Friday stage, the Toyota Gazoo Racing crew held a 0.6 second lead over Katsuta who won stage five and took the overall lead.

Evans struck back one stage later before succumbing to Tanak’s flying Hyundai i20 N on stage seven, dropping to third overall.

The final stage may have only been 5.1km long but it was enough for Evans to end the day clinging on to the lead from his on-form Japanese teammate.

The Welshman started the day in fine form, with the temperatures recording -12°C, bagging the opening stage scratch time before Hyundai’s coming man Adrien Fourmaux took two stage wins on the trot to keep Evans very much on his toes and under pressure.

Thierry Neuville and Ott Tänak both complained of understeer, as did Kalle Rovanperä and Grégoire Munster in the lead M-Sport Ford Puma. All four bled time throughout the morning.

At the midday service, Evans led Fourmaux by 1.9 seconds with Tänak 4.3 seconds behind and 2.2 seconds ahead of Katsuta, the top four blanketed by 8.4 seconds. The leading Ford Puma belonged to rookie Rally1 driver Josh McErlean and Eoin Tracey, something of an indictment on Munster’s performance.

After service and some tweaking Katsuta, Tänak, Neuville and Evans each took a stage win and by the end of the day’s action, the top five were covered by 9.1 seconds!

Sami Pajari was flying on the day’s opening stage but gave a Valentine’s kiss to a snow bank, pulling a tyre off the rim which cost 40 seconds as the Yaris limped through the stage.

The other youngster in the field, Latvian Martins Sesks built up his speed over the day, recording the third fastest time on stage five as well as stage six as he builds his confidence of rallying on snow and ice and ended the day the fastest of the M-Sport quartet.

In Rally2, Oliver Solberg has a 20.7 second lead over Roope Korhonen having won five of the day’s seven stages. Georg Linnamäe lies third, some 45 seconds off the pace in spite of winning stage six.

Positions after SS8:

1. Evans, Katsuta +1.9, Tänak +3.6, Fourmaux +9.3, Neuville +14.3

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In spite of running first on the road, Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin took the 5.16km Umeå Sprint stage win by half a second from their Toyota Gazoo Racing teammates Kalle Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen.

Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja led the Hyundai charge, tying with Rovanperä, with Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria 0.7 seconds back in fourth place.

Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe set the fifth fastest time, 3.7 seconds off Evans’ time, followed by Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston and Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen.

M-Sport Ford’s rookie, Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy in only their second Rally1 start, lead the four-car strong Puma attack with the eighth fastest time, three seconds quicker than Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka while Martins Sesks/Renars Francis rounded out the top ten.

In WRC2, Oliver Solberg – chasing a hat trick of Rally2 wins – and co-driver Elliot Edmondson beat fellow Swedes Pontus Tidemand/Jorgen Eriksen by 1.4 seconds to lay down an early marker.

Earlier in the day, Neuville topped the shakedown stage times, from Sesks, Tänak, Fourmaux and Evans.

There’s a long way to go…

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With an overnight lead of 12.6 seconds in his back pocket, Sebastian Ogier spent Saturday gradually building his advantage to 24.4 seconds with one stage remaining. Running in 10^th position on the road, his final stage was run in darkness and he conceded 4.1 seconds to his second placed teammate Elfyn Evans, leaving the eight-time champion with 20.3 seconds with three Sunday stages remaining.

“I tried to manage the risk, which is not easy in Monte-Carlo,” the eight-time world champion reflected. “In these conditions you need to be prepared to lose a bit of time.”

Evans and co-driver Scott Martin were involved in a frenetic battle with Hyundai’s new signing Adrien Fourmaux and Alex Coria for second position overall. Fourmaux ended Friday’s action just 1.6 seconds behind the GR Yaris crew.

Saturday’s first stage saw the warring drivers tied on time. On stage 11, Fourmaux pipped Evans and took second place by half a second which became 2.8 seconds on the final stage of the morning loop.

The Welshman put his head down and re-took his runner-up place with a 1.7 second gap to the Frenchman but on the penultimate stage, the positions changed yet again, with Fourmaux 0.7 seconds ahead.

With light fading fast on the final stage, Evans did what he had to do and blitzed Fourmaux’s time to end the day with a 4.8 second advantage.

While the focus was on the fight for second, Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja wrung the neck of their Hyundai, taking four stage wins to move to within 2.5 seconds of the podium. He’d closed in on Kalle Rovanperä during the morning loop, narrowing the gap to one second before surging ahead after the midday service.

After completing the final stage on Friday, Grégoire Munster and Louis Louka were forced to retire from the rally after encountering an electrical problem on the way back to the service park. The M-Sport Ford crew repaired the car and Munster thanked them by claiming his first ever WRC stage win, powering his Puma to the fastest time on the day’s opening stage by 0.8 seconds, beating Ogier and Rovanperä.

“Really good feeling”, beamed Munster. “Everyone was a bit gutted yesterday but I think this is a really big thank you for them, all the team that worked really hard last night. Years of commitment and work that finally get a reward, it is a very nice feeling.”

Rovanperä prefers fast, open stages and he was struggling to find the time, and ended the day in fifth, one position up on his flu-ridden teammate Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston, who set the fastest time on stage 12.

Sami Pajari continued his considered approach to the tricky rally, and held a solid seventh overall while the other novice, Josh McErlean entered the top ten in ninth place at the end of the longest day of the rally.

Neuville’s woes persisted in the morning when a mysterious power loss slowed him 1.4km into the opening stage. A quick system reset restored performance, but by that point the Belgian had already leaked another 50sec.

“I had to do a reset. The car went and then I lost the power like in Japan, we thought the trouble was gone. In the situation we were in we said to do a reset and we were fine since. No idea, no alarm, nothing. Now it is working,’ Neuville reported.

The three problem’s Neuville encountered over Friday and Saturday left the Belgian over five minutes off the lead.

In WRC2, Nikolay Gryazin held tenth but wasn’t eligible to score points, leaving Yohan Rossel with more than 2 minutes in hand over Gus Greensmith.

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Chasing his record-breaking 10^th Rallye Monte Carlo victory, Sebastian Ogier and Vincent Landais slithered their Toyota Gazoo Racing GR Yaris to the top of the leaderboard after the first full day of action at the opening round of the FIA World Rally Championship.

The six stages – five were run after SS5 was cancelled due a spectator medical event – had it all. Dry tarmac, wet tarmac, wet mud, and of course, black ice, making grip levels unpredictable at best and a nerve-wracking lottery at worst. Teams had a wide array of Hankook’s new rubber to choose from and countless variations abounded. Full studs, studded crossed with full winter, or even super-soft rubber all round.

Kalle Rovanpera and Jonne Halttunen set the timing sheets alight and set the benchmark time on stage four, but the most impressive drive came from Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka in the their M-Sport Ford Puma,  only 1.4 seconds behind the double WRC Champion.

All the top runners had the same storyline; difficult to predict how much and where, grip was available.

Stage six saw the first of several incidents: Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe arrived at a sharp right-hand corner and couldn’t slow down enough. The Hyundai slithered over a mound on the apex of the corner which pitched the i20 N into a ditch on the opposite side of the road. The left-rear corner was wrecked, but the reigning champion dragged his car through the rest of the stage and back to the service park.

 “I think we paid the price for not having enough experience with the tyre for the dry section, it felt like the tyre was quite stable then suddenly I lost the brakes, saw the ditch and lost the rear’”, the Belgian explained.

Hyundai teammate Ott Tanak and Martin Järveoja also had a moment, understeering into a ditch, missing a pole by inches and running along the ditch until he could floor the throttle to get back on to the road. At the stage end, after surveying what was left of his car, the Estonian said: “There is a lot missing but I am happy to be here. Some black ice was there.”

Ogier too, had a moment, a briefly ‘ditched’ his GR Yaris as well, but he got away with it. Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen went off in exactly the same place as Ogier, pulling a tyre off the rim.

Adrien Fourmaux/Alex Coria won the stage with another team-leader-esque drive from Munster, who went second quickest, beating such luminaries as Ogier, rally leader Elfyn Evans, Rovanpera and Tanak.

The afternoon loop went relatively quietly, except for Evans and Neuville. The Welshman had a spin in SS8. “I was proper steady, it just started to go and I couldn’t recover. I was on the ice, we just went a margin too far, we were almost there. We had the information, it was Bambi on ice,” he shrugged.

The spin cost Evans the lead which was now in Ogier’s hands.

Neville had a carbon copy incident on SS9 at the same corner as his stage six faux pas. This time though, he’d suffered a puncture beforehand but with the same result, bouncing over the mound and across the road into the same ditch nose first, albeit without further damage. He elaborated: “I was punctured far before, left front puncture since the beginning. We tried to go as far and as fast as we could but at some time the tyre just went and we went straight again.”

It was a French one-two in stages eight and nine with Ogier heading Fourmaux on the timesheets. At the close of business, Ogier led teammate Evans by 12.6 seconds with Fourmaux threateningly close, 1.6 seconds back in third.

Rovanpera, Tanak and Munster rounded out the top six.

In WRC2, Yohan and Leo Rossel’s Citroen C3s sandwiched Eric Camilli’s Hyundai, although Nikolay Gryazin – who is not registered to score points on this round – was keeping Skoda’s flag flying, 21.4 seconds behind Rossel (Y).

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The 2025 FIA World Rally Championship got underway with three night stages high up in the French Alps. Under the gaze of tens of thousands of spectators who lit up the night sky with fireworks and flares, Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe ended the trio of stages on top of the standings by two seconds after cautiously threading their Hyundai i20 N through the tricky mountain pass roads.

Conditions ranged from dry and wet tarmac to hidden patches of black ice which Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Sebastian Ogier and Vincent Landais conquered to lead after two stages. An expensive spin into a pole in the final stage saw the multiple champion lose 12 seconds and drop to third overall.

“On the first part [of SS3] I was painting the road, and in the last part I was cleaning the road!” Neuville smiled. “Super tricky to keep it on the road. I’m happy with the first day. Overall, our target was to finish today.”

“[It was] difficult of course. A lot of mud on the road and we hit a pole sideways. It’s always lucky to get away with that,” said Ogier at the stop control.

Sandwiched between the Hyundai and Ogier was Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin in their GR Yaris, two seconds off the lead.

Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja ended fourth, some 27 seconds adrift of the reigning World Champion with Hyundai’s third crew Adrien Fourmaux/Alex Coria finishing in fifth. The Frenchman shone on stage two, beating Tanak’s time by 3.1 seconds.

Kalle Rovanpera, returning for a full season campaign with Toyota was a little rusty and ended down in sixth position with M-Sport Ford’s new team leader Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka slotting into seventh in the standings. The Luxembourger hustled his Puma to the fourth fastest time in the final stage of the evening, narrowing the gap to Rovanpera to 4.9 seconds.

Fighting a bout of flu, Takamoto Katsuta and Aaron Johnston ended eighth, 4’30” behind the Ford.

Sami Pajari, making his Monte Rally1 debut and with Marko Salminen reading the notes finished a cautious ninth ahead of the top Rally2 team of Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov, now Skoda mounted.

Josh McErlean and Eoin Treacy, making their Rally1 debut in the second M-Sport Ford Puma, ended in 12^th position after taking a sensible approach to the start of their new career path.

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Stage 11: Shubaytah – Shubaytah  stage 275km, liaison 232km

Strategy came into play on the penultimate stage of the 2025 Dakar Rally.

Dunes and fog are not a good mix when the riders, drivers and crews have to start a special on the Dakar. The Empty Quarter was full of dense mist, preventing the helicopters from taking off to ensuring the race’s safety, which delayed the start of the stage, adding to the tension amongst the competitors.

Wednesday’s overall leader Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings were the 11^th crew to take on the dunes of the Empty Quarter, while his title rival Yazeed Al Rajhi started 33^rd and the overall gap between first and second was a slim 2:27…

Lategan caught the front runners and had to slow so as not to open the road, while Al Rajhi could pick off cars at leisure – and at speed. He and Nasser Al-Attiyah set a blistering pace.

At the first waypoint, the Overdrive Toyota crew was just 44 seconds off the South African’s time and by km 94, the gap was just four seconds!

By the time they all passed the third waypoint at km 138, the Saudi driver had a virtual overall lead of 1’24” which grew over the remainder of the stage to 6’11” by the time they all trooped back into the Shubaytah bivouac. With just 61 km of racing left on the final day, Al Rajhi is almost home and dry.

Having conceded his lead, Lategan said: “We did all we could today. Here and there we could have maybe pushed a bit harder, but the car is in one piece, we didn’t miss any waypoints, and we got up the majority of the dunes the first time. It has been a very good day for us and an awesome race. I just think that today’s road position counted against us a little bit. We couldn’t have finished much quicker as we came in right behind Lucas who was opening the road, so if we had overtaken him, we would have been opening the road.”

The stage belonged to the Swedes Mattias Ekstrom and Emil Bergkvist, giving the Ford Raptor back-to-back stage victories. Ekstrom blasted past the first waypoint 59 seconds behind Al-Attiyah who was on a mission to take third in the overall standings off the Ford pair. By the next waypoint, Ekstrom led from Al Rajhi with Al-Attiyah down in fifth in the stage ranking.

Bergstrom held off a late attack from the Qatari’s Dacia, taking the win by 41 seconds with Al Rajhi coming home with the third fastest time, 61 seconds behind the reigning W2RC Champion.

Mitch Guthrie and Kellon Walch brought their Ford Raptor home in fourth after another impressive drive on their Ultimate class debut.

Lategan brought his Toyota Gazoo Racing SA Hilux home in fifth position, 50” behind the second Ford.

Sixth went to the Portuguese pair of Joao Ferreira/Filipe Palmeiro in the diesel-powered X-Raid Mini JCW, 18” ahead of Rokas Bascuiska/Oriol Mena’s Overdrive Toyota Hilux.

Mathieu Serradori/Loic Minaudier was the leading Century Racing CR7 home, over seven minutes ahead of Guillaume de Mevius/ Mathieu Baumel in their X-Raid Mini JCW.

Rounding out the top ten was Jean Bergounhe/Pascal Larroque in their nimble 4×2 MD Optimus, the second top ten finish for the marque.

On a stage whose distance was reduced by half for the bikes as a result of the delayed start, Tosha Schareina struck a big blow by regaining 7’31’’ over Daniel Sanders, reducing the gap between the two men in the overall rankings to 9 minutes. The Spaniard reinforced his second position before the final 61-km stage which will feature a reverse order grouped start with 15 bikes leaving at a time. Adrien Van Beveren, 3rd in the general rankings, battled to defend his position against Luciano Benavides. Although the Argentinean finished ahead of the Frenchman by 24’’ on this special, he remains in 4th in the general, 6’26’’ from the podium.

In Rally 2, Mathieu Dovèze won by 20’’ ahead of his team-mate Toni Mulec. At the top of the general standings, 35 minutes separate Edgar Canet from Tobias Ebster. Canet is therefore set to win the Rally 2 class on his first attempt.

Overall standings (Provisional)

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Stage 10: Haradh – Shubaytah  Stage 120km, liaison 520km

Stage ten may have been ‘only’ 120km, but it comprised 96% dunes, and these weren’t little heaps of sand but full-fat dunes where Saudi driver Yazeed Al Rajhi, the overall leader after Tuesday’s stage, should have been right at home.

He wasn’t, though.

Nani Roma and Alex Haro gave the new Ford Raptor its maiden Dakar stage win after grabbing the lead after the favourites ran into navigational issues and stayed there to the end. Behind the Ford, drama unfolded right at the start of the stage.

Starting first on the road, Nasser Al-Attiyah got lost as early as km 9, leaving the five-time winner languishing in 36^th and 13’39” off the front-running pace at the 45km mark.

A kilometer later, yesterday’s stage runner-up, Belgian Guillaume de Mevius/Mathieu Baumel stopped for 35 minutes to attend to their recalcitrant Mini JCW.

By km 45, Mitch Guthrie, Lucas Moraes, Seth Quintero and Juan Yacopini were all squabbling over the fastest time but it was Roma who was quickest, followed by the Toyota Gazoo Racing pair, Lucas Moraes/Armand Monleon 11 seconds slower with another superb performance coming from Brian Baragwanath/Leonard Cremer in their Century Racing CR7 holding third, 47” behind the Hilux.

A remarkable performance came from Daniel Schroeder/Henry Kohne in their WCT-Amarok who popped up with the fourth fastest time.

Al Rajhi stopped for five minutes at km 83, dropping time to Lategan, who’d started from 11^th on the road.

Moraes was pushing Roma hard, 47 seconds adrift at km 97 with Baragwanath holding on to third and Schroder having the drive of his life in fourth.

All eyes, though, were on the virtual overall leader at this point and it’s where Lategan re-took the overall lead by 1’16”over the Overdrive Hilux pair.

As the cars rolled in to the Shubaytah bivouac, Roma had done just enough to hold off the Toyota, with 18 seconds in it at the end.

Baragwanath claimed the final step of the stage podium while Schroder claimed easily his best stage result with fourth, and was just fast enough to keep Yacopini behind by 7”.

Cristina Gutierrez/Pablo Moreno was the leading Dacia Sandrider home in sixth, just under a minute ahead of the X-Raid Mini JCW of Denis Krotov/Konstantin Zhiltsov.

Seth Quintero/Dennis Zenz made it home in eighth, 40’ seconds ahead of 20-year old Alliyah Koloc/Sebastien Delaunay in their Red-Lined Revo-GTR, easily the young Seychelles lady racer’s best ever stage.

Mathieu Serradori/Loic Minaudier rounded out the top ten in their Century Racing CR7.

Lategan ended the stage in 11^th place, Al Rajhi in 27^th and Al-Attiyah in 30^th. Is this strategy at play?

Overall, it has become a two-horse race between Henk Lategan and Yazeed Al Rajhi; the South African reclaimed the lead in the overall standings from Yazeed Al Rajhi. The two Toyota drivers are separated by 2′27″. Mattias Ekström remains third, while Nasser Al Attiyah dropped more than half an hour to Lategan and is now 30′21″ down.

A navigation error near the start of the special cost Al-Attiyah the five-time winner, a golden opportunity to get himself back in contention for the title. He did not mince his words: “I’m very disappointed, but what can you do? We could have had a great stage, but we’ll see what position we’re in and what we can do tomorrow. Every day is very important, and we had a good pace, but we lost a lot of time. This is the most disappointing day of my life.”

“It’s difficult for me to judge my pace in the sand. I’m used to the gravel more and I know when I’m going quickly and when I’m not. In the sand, I have no idea”, said Lategan. “We were going at a decent pace, I thought, then Martin Prokop came past us so I thought maybe we’re going a bit too slow and sped up a little bit.”

On two wheels, Michael Docherty became the second South African to win a stage, following in the footsteps of Alfie Cox, whose last victory was in 2003… 22 years ago. Interestingly, Docherty sports race number 22, making this connection even more symbolic.

The win for Michael Docherty, the second-ever Rally 2 rider in history to win a Dakar stage, after Danilo Petrucci in 2022! The South African claimed his first career victory, 1′20″ ahead of Rui Gonçalves and 2′21″ ahead of Tobias Ebster. Stefan Svitko finished fourth, 5′10″ behind, marking his best result of the year. Edgar Canet rounded out the top 5 at 5′34″. Docherty, Ebster and Canet also form the Rally 2 podium for the day, in that same order!

Tosha Schareina, second overall, was 16’31” behind Daniel Sanders, but he reckons he can still turn the tables on the leader in tomorrow’s decisive stage: “I think I [tried] to go more or less slow in the dunes to not open the stage tomorrow. I felt good, I felt really with me. Just started about two weeks racing, so yeah, that’s all. I think they told me that they put me two more minutes, so I start tomorrow behind him. But yeah, good for that. For sure, it’s so complicated in 300 K to cut [those] 17 minutes, but everything is possible.”

Overall positions (provisional)

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M-Sport Ford has announced that Mārtiņš Sesks and Renārs Francis will compete in six rounds of the World Rally Championship this season behind the wheel of a Rally1 Ford Puma.

The 25-year-old Latvian’s first event is Rally Sweden next month, followed by Portugal, Sardinia, Greece, Estonia and Finland.

Sesks stunned fans and peers alike with his maiden appearance in Poland. Claiming the second-fastest time on Friday’s opening stage, Sesks kept close to the championship leaders throughout the weekend, and despite running the less powerful non-hybrid Puma, he finished his first Rally1 outing in fifth overall.

 Sesks’ full-hybrid debut in Latvia was even more impressive, claiming his maiden stage win on the third stage of the rally and going on to spend most of the weekend fighting for the podium positions, cruelly denied a maiden podium with a last stage technical issue.

Support for Sesks’ 2025 campaign comes from his personal sponsors as well as M-Sport’s sponsor SafetyCulture.

Richard Millener, Team Principal, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team, said:

“I think Martins made a lot of new fans in a very short space of time last season, and now to think that those two performances have allowed him to find a six event programme this year is fantastic.

 “Obviously without the support of his own sponsors, and SafetyCulture, this year wouldn’t be possible. A big thank you goes to all involved, as well as a mention to the WRC Promoter, who helped to raise the budget for the events last season. The culmination of all this support has come together to deliver what we see today.

“I am really excited to see what can be achieved by Mārtiņš and Renārs this year. Chile was a reminder that it won’t all be plain sailing, but I know that the speed he has shown, plus his determination and character, will make him a fantastic addition to our 2025 line-up.”

SafetyCulture’s founder Luke Anear , said:

 “Martins is a natural talent. He has an X-factor in his driving and his approach to the sport is refreshing. He has demonstrated that he has the pace to beat the best in the world, so it’s going to be exciting to see him at the top level again in 2025.”

The young driver is excited about the new development in his career path.

“We are very excited to continue our collaboration with the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team this year! We feel truly honored that our debut in the WRC’s Rally1 league last year has fostered such trust from both M-Sport and SafetyCulture. Additionally, the genuine interest from both long-standing and new sponsors from Latvia in supporting our efforts is very thrilling!

“This opportunity provides us with immense motivation to further our journey in the WRC’s Rally1 class. As we look ahead to the 2025 season, we anticipate many new challenges, but we are more motivated than ever and ready to learn, all while bringing joy to our fans. The chance to compete half of the 2025 WRC season promises to deliver invaluable experience for the years to come.

“Our goal is to add one more event with the Puma to our current list, the rally in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, we will be actively working throughout the season to secure the financial support necessary to make this goal a reality.”

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Al Duwadimi – Al Duwadimi  stage 419km, liaison 297km

Lucas Moraes and Armand Monleon became the sixth different winner from seven stages in what turned out to be a chaotic stage from a timing point of view, hence the word “provisional” as standings could well change before the sun sets over Saudi Arabia.

The Brazilian said: “Yeah, to be honest, since we started so far behind, we were lucky because we definitely got all the tracks for us. So yeah, we didn’t have nothing to lose today, so we pushed a lot. And nice to win one more stage in the Dakar. These things are really hard to get, so happy to score some points for the championship as well. And got to keep fighting. I think now it’s going to be, maybe tomorrow it’s going to be just like this one today and then we’re going to start reaching the Empty Quarter. And there will be some strategy of course playing to not open the bigger one that we have there. But otherwise, so far so good and happy with the win.”

An official notice said “An incorrect road book note for km 158 of the special has caused several drivers at the front of the field to lose their bearings. A segment of about 20 km before and after this point will therefore be delimited at the finish of the car special at the bivouac in Al Duwadimi, erasing any gains or losses made in this part of the stage.”

Dakar leader Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings found the correct route and opened a gap while the others drove around in circles; Al Rajhi lost 14 minutes and Al Attiyah some 20 minutes, while the Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa pair found themselves opening the road. Once the chasing pack found their tracks, he bled time to his closest rivals Yazeed Al Rajhi, Nasser Al-Attiyah and Mattias Ekstrom.

After the times had been adjusted, the 30-year-old South African’s lead was just 21 seconds ahead of Al Rajhi. They were, in essence severely penalized for not getting lost! “It’s a bit of a mess with the times. I’m not sure what’s going on. The official timing is showing something different. They took some of the section out of the stage. We’ll see what happens, we hope it doesn’t stay like this. It would be quite unfair because you cannot be penalized for finding the road first. It would not be right”, said Lategan.

At the time of writing, Moraes restored Toyota’s dominance, winning the stage by 7’41” from the Swedish Ford team of Mattias Ekstrom/Emil Bergkvist with Mitch Guthrie/Kellon Walch taking third in their M-Sport Raptor.

Nasser Al-Attiyah/Edouard Boulanger claimed fourth in their Dacia Sandrider on corrected time with Seth Quintero/Dennis Zenz racing their Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux to within 23 seconds of their Qatari rival.

Cristina Gutierrez/Pablo Moreno earned a top six finish in their Dacia, 12 minutes off the lead and 48 seconds ahead of Al Rajhi/Timo Gottschalk in their Overdrive Hilux.

Saood Variawa/Francois Cazalet scored another top 10 finish in their Toyota Gazoo South Africa Hilux, comfortably ahead of the Argentinian Juan Yacopini and his Spanish co-driver Daniel Oliveras in another Overdrive Toyota.

The Brazilian Marcelo Gastaldi and Adrien Metge were the top Century Racing finisher in tenth after Mathieu Serradori/Loic Minaudier- who ran as high as second at the 138km mark – suffered power steering problems and dropped back after stopping to top up with oil.

Ignoring the incorrect instruction at the halfway mark of the stage, the top ten teams had all started the day 16^th or lower, while yesterday’s winner Grégoire de Mevius ended 14^th after setting out first on the road. In the stage results, seven of the top ten started 11^th or lower down the order.

Opening a stage on the Dakar Rally is not for the feint-hearted!

In the bike race, Australian Daniel Sanders maintained his grip on the overall standings with another stage win. The Australian master of the Dakar took his fifth stage win of the season and built up a comfortable lead for the rest of the race, 15′33″ ahead of his closest rival, Tosha Schareina: “It was pretty fast, very fast. Technical at the start, we had a lot of rain. But it was only at the start, so it was a pretty wet line to see in front and just had us kind of correct and not follow the mistakes with the navigation. The speed was good, head was good, so it was a much better day.”

In other news, Moraes was given a suspended disqualification after his co-driver accepted a cell phone from a random stranger for 43 seconds in the neutralization zone on stage five. The DQ Sword of Damocles was replaced with a one-hour penalty.

Autosport reports that Al-Attiyah is incensed by the FIA disqualifying Sainz and Loeb, and more so about his ten-minutes penalty for losing a spare wheel after the supporting cradle broke. Stating his intention to write a letter to the president of FIA Mohammed ben Sulayem about the sanction, he said: “I don’t understand it. To lose the tyres with the support [structure] and then the spectator finds the tyre with the support and you get ten minutes. I don’t accept it. “But I’m working to fix that whole problem because that’s not sport, we have to be fair. If I do it the wrong way and drop the tyres, OK, I get ten minutes penalty, but we didn’t realise, we have to be fair, but I will make a good letter to the [FIA] president, to avoid all that.”

Overall standings (provisional)

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