Dakar Rally 2025: Henk Lategan takes the lead again, suspense at its peak on the eve of the decisive stage

Henk Lategan prend ce mercredi la tête du classement général au Dakar-2025 DAKAR PRESS TEAM – Gerard Laurenssen

Le Sud-Africain Henk Lategan a repris mercredi 15 janvier 2025 la tête du classement général des autos au Dakar-2025 en Arabie saoudite, à la veille d'une avant-dernière étape décisive pour le dénouement du célèbre rallye-raid.

As an appetizer for their final days in the dune desert of the Empty Quarter, an uninterrupted expanse of sand covering 650,000 km2, the competitors faced a modest 120 km special stage around Shubaytah, won by Nani Roma in a car and Michael Docherty (KTM) on a motorbike.

For his first stage victory on the Dakar since 2015, Nani Roma completed the special stage in 2h 6min 34sec at the wheel of his Ford Raptor. “It's been a difficult rally for us from the start, we've been trying to have clean days. This morning we were very fast, then we understood that we had to slow down a little. We're happy for the team. The car is good, it's solid and the team works well”, declared at the finish the Spaniard, 28 Dakars under his belt including two victories (2004 on a motorbike, 2014 in a car).
Today's podium is completed by the Brazilian Lucas Moraes (Toyota) at 18 sec and the Saudi Dania Akeel (Taurus) at 1 min 40 sec.

Classements

CARS

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10th stage

1. Nani Roma (ESP) 2h06:34
2. Lucas Moraes (BRA) at 18.
3. Dania Akeel (KSA) at 1:10
4. Brian Baragwanath (RSA) 2:21
5. Francisco Lopez Contardo (CHI) 4:11

MOTORCYCLES

10th step

1. Michael Docherty (RSA) 2h00:03
2. Rui Gonçalves (POR) at 1:20
3. Tobias Ebster (AUT) 2:21
4. Stefan Svitko (SVK) 5:10
5. Edgar Canet (ESP) 5:34 

GENERAL

10th steps

1. Daniel Sanders (AUS) 49h53:59
2. Tosha Schareina (ESP) at 16:31
3. Adrien Van Beveren (FRA) 22:24
4. Luciano Benavides (ARG) 29:14
5. Ricky Brabec (USA) 32:18

Taking advantage of a sand trap that caused his Saudi competitor Yazeed al-Rajhi (Overdrive) to lose precious minutes, South African Henk Lategan (Toyota) took back the lead in the provisional general classification by 2 min 27 sec.

The two riders are neck and neck for first place before the 11th and penultimate stage on Thursday, a bracing 308 km special of dunes in the Empty Quarter, which should be decisive for the choice of the winner in the category.“It wasn't the plan to go fast today, but we rode at a good pace without forcing it,” said the South African.

– “Most disappointing day of my life” –

However, Nasser al-Attiyah's (Dacia) hopes of a sixth Dakar victory are fading. Following a navigation error, he is now half an hour behind Lategan. “We had a very good pace but we lost a lot of time. It's the most disappointing day of my life“, said the Qatari.

Daniel Sanders untouchable

In the motorbike category, the stage was won by South African Michael Docherty in 2 hours and 3 seconds, with a 1 minute 20 second lead over Portuguese Rui Gonçalves (Sherco) and 2 minutes 21 seconds ahead of Austrian Tobias Ebster (KTM). “Happy to be back in the dunes, it's what I've been waiting for since the beginning of the Dakar. Even if it was short, it was good to be back in it”, said the winner of the day, based in the United Arab Emirates.

In the provisional general classification, Daniel Sanders (KTM) remains comfortably in the lead, with a 16 min 31 sec lead over the Spaniard Tosha Schareina (Honda) and 22 min 24 sec over the Frenchman Adrien Van Beveren (Honda), only 19th in Wednesday's stage. The Dakar Rally concludes its 47th edition on Friday.