Dakar Stage 6: Brabec takes first win as de Mevius tops cars

The second week of the Dakar Rally started with a good day for America's Ricky Brabec (pictured), who claimed his first stage win of this year's rally on his Monster Energy Honda by 23s over teammate Adrien van Beveren as the event resumed following the rest day. Brabec moved up to fourth overall, while Daniel Sanders remains out front by 11m46s.

"The first day on the second week is a long day," said Brabec, a two-time winner at Dakar. "They like to make you get a little bit of rest and then put you right back into it.

"It's been a tough day. I saw Ross [Branch] on the ground, pushed the rescue button, saw the helicopter just up ahead landing on the ground. So I figured for me it was quicker just to get out of there and go to the helicopter directly rather than try to phone some rescue. But before I even got to Ross, there was police already with them and he was conscious. So yeah, once I did that, kept going on my way.

"The stage was pretty varied, with multiple conditions of terrain. The last little bit in the dunes was tricky because all the local traffic to watch the race was crazy. There's people going everywhere! But yeah, all is good. Six more days, so we'll keep fighting."

In the Ultimate class, Guillaume de Mevius also had a breakthrough, claiming the first stage win for himself and the newly revamped X-raid Mini. The Belgian ended the Toyota hegemony with 1m34s in hand over his teammate João Ferreira.

"For now, we're sitting at the top of the leaderboard. We had a good stage, finally," said de Mevius. "Our goal was to claw back some time and pick up points for the championship, so we gave it everything we had. My car still bears a few scars from last week and today we did a bit of flying, but thankfully we didn't hit anything. The rest day is also a chance to hit reset and we're heading into a better rhythm after some tough moments in the first week. It's not exactly my kind of terrain. On the sand, I can hold my own, but I know I've still got room to improve."

Dacia's Nasser Al Attiyah finished third on the stage, 2m01s behind, and gained overall ground on the leaders although he's still 30m back in fourth. Toyota Gazoo Racing's Hank Lategan stays on top overall with a 7m16s lead over Yazeed Al Rajhi of Toyota Overdrive Racing and 22m27s over Mattias Ekstrom's Ford Raptor.

Lategan's seventh place was his worst stage finish of the rally, and he admitted he was being cautious.

"It was a little bit of a shaky start, to be honest. This morning getting into the first bit of dunes and especially these rough tracks in the dunes was a little bit tricky," said the South African. "We didn't push really hard -- we tried to be safe today, especially with the coming days and the bikes not opening the road, so we don't really want to be close to the front."

America's Brock Heger maintained his lead in the SSV class, finishing third on today's stage. His Polaris teammate Xavier de Soultrait continues his comeback after losing an hour to a mechanical issue on Stage 4.  The Frenchman trailed home "Chaleco" Lopez and his now 1h07m behind Heger overall. "But last year we lost one hour on the first week and then we won by two minutes," said de Soultrait. "So, we won’t give up and we’ll push as much as we can to win again.”

America's Corbin Leaverton took another second-place finish on the stage in the Challenger class, where Nicholas Cavigliasso continues to lead overall by 35 minutes over Leaverton's Red Bull Junior teammate Gonçalo Guerreiro.