Al Attiyah closes on Dakar victory with 50th stage win; Brabec also leading into final day

Although a measured approach to this year's Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia had served Nasser Al Attiyah well, the Qatari went all-out in Friday's next-to-last stage, and emerged with an all but insurmountable lead after claiming his 50th career stage win in the marathon event.

Being the 17th driver to start the special, while holding an advantage of more than eight minutes over Nani Roma, Al Attiyah saw a big opportunity to pad his stats. Over the 409-km/254-mile run through the rocks and stones, the Qatari let his driving skill do the talking.

In very different circumstances, Al Attiyah has joined Ari Vatanen and Stéphane Peterhansel as joint record holders for stage wins in the car category and, in his Dacia Sandrider (pictured above), is now heading for a sixth overall triumph, which is just 105 km/65 miles away. Before this final parade (and why not a 51st stage win to surpass the other two giants of Dakar?), he now leads Roma's Ford Raptor by 15m02s, while the final occupant of the third step on the podium will be decided tomorrow between the two brands that have dominated the rally.

Ford's Mattias Ekstrom gained ground with the day’s fourth-best time (behind Al Attiyah, fellow Ford man Mitch Guthrie and Toyota's Toby Price) to move into third overall ahead of Dacia's Sebastien Loeb. Now the Swedish driver will have to hang onto his 29-second lead in tomorrow's last dash, while the Frenchman, who has never finished a Dakar anywhere else than on the podium, will start nine minutes after him.

Ricky Brabec's tactical game yesterday paid off big time on Friday. At the end of Thursday's stage, the American deliberately gave up the lead in the overall motorcycle rankings to Luciano Benavides. The strategic move allowed the Monster Energy Honda rider to start six minutes behind his rival from Red Bull KTM this morning, with the gap in the overall rankings limited to 23 seconds. Given the American's technical mastery, this was deemed the safest way to secure a comfortable lead before the final stage, and that is exactly what happened. With his 13th career Dakar stage victory and his second this year, the Honda rider not only swallowed up that 23s deficit but built up a lead of 3m43s over Benavides, despite the Argentinean finishing second on the stage.

“I don’t know if the strategy was that good. I was good and I got to push all day but Luciano is riding really great," said Brabec. "It was a tough day. I tried all day to make up time. I did my best job but he caught up with the leaders pretty soon and was able to get bonuses early on.

"Tomorrow is supposed to be ‘easy’ they say and if I open and do a good job, I should get about a minute and a half of bonus time, so we’ll see what happens.”

While a third Dakar title is clearly in sight for Brabec, the possibility of Benavides making a comeback on the final stage cannot be ruled out entirely. His brother Kevin achieved this feat in 2023 but at the time he was only 12 seconds behind leader Toby Price. Tomorrow, Benavides will start three minutes behind the new leader, but he will not only have just the short 105km available in which to catch up, but Brabec will pocket opener’s bonuses (up to 1m23s in total) that could blunt any comeback charge.

Skyler Howes and Adrien Van Beveren opened the way this morning but soon let the overall duellists battle it out at the front. The two Honda riders were clocked at over 24 and 13 minutes down respectively. The American slowing down did not prevent him from climbing one place in the rankings though, to fourth, benefiting from Daniel Sanders' poor form owing to the shoulder injury from a crash that knocked him out of the lead.

Brock Heger's imperious run toward victory in the SSV class continued, despite the American's conservative run to sixth today. The RZR factory driver still holds a lead of more than an hour over fellow countryman Kyle Chaney.

There was another American winner today in the Stock class, as Sara Price took another turn in front for the all-conquering Defender Rally team. But Price, who lost considerable time to mechanical issues early on, remains a distant second overall to teammate Rokas Baciuska, who is nearly four hours ahead on aggregate time.