Dakar 2025 – Stage 2a: Yazeed Al Rajhi in the lead, Carlos Sainz and Sébastien Loeb lose big
The first part of the 48-hour race contested over two days smiled upon the desert foxes Yazeed Al Rajhi and Nasser Al-Attiyah, while presenting numerous difficulties for other favorites.
The Dakar is a ruthless race. Although all the competitors have this doctrine in mind, the world’s largest rally-raid forgives nothing, including for the desert regulars and event specialists.
For this first part of the 48-hour stage which covers 967 kilometers spread over Sunday and Monday, Carlos Sainz and Sébastien Loeb may have already seen their hopes of victory evaporate.
Titleholder, the Spanish driver rolled over with his Ford Raptor. Helped by a teammate to get the American car back on its wheels, Sainz finds himself tonight with nearly an hour’s delay on the race leader. Moreover, he won’t be able to benefit from his support team’s help overnight to repair his vehicle.
Even if it is less steep, the bill is still hefty for Sébastien Loeb and Fabian Lurquin. Stuck in the dunes at the start of the stage, the Dacia Sandrider of the Franco-Belgian duo then experienced a failure of its three fans, causing the engine to overheat. Loeb loses more than half an hour in the process.
In front, the pace was brisk. At the end of this half-stage, it’s the Toyota of the duo Yazeed Al Rajhi / Timo Gottschalk leading, a little more than a minute ahead of the Dacia of Nasser Al-Attiyah / Edouard Boulanger, who have so far been spared from reliability issues. The Toyota and the Dacia are nearly nine minutes ahead of the Ford of Mattias Ekström / Emil Bergkvist, placing three different manufacturers in the top three positions.
The 48-hour race will continue and conclude tomorrow with, no doubt, new surprises, good or bad, awaiting the competitors.
