The 2025 Dakar Rally has had perhaps as much drama and twists in one week than there have been in the last few years combined.
As the crews find their breath on the rest day in Ha’il, we take a look back on some of the stories you may have missed during a frantic opening week to the 47th edition of the classic rally raid.
Youngest Ultimate stage winner record broken, twice
Toyota Gazoo Racing has enjoyed a sensational opening week to the Dakar Rally, winning all five stages as well as the pre-event prologue and leading the overall standings with Henk Lategan.
It also broke the record for the youngest stage winner in the Ultimate car category. Not once, but twice in just three days.
Seth Quintero – who still holds the record for the most stages won in a single Dakar with 11 from 12 in 2022 – took the record after inheriting stage one victory following a penalty for X-raid Mini JCW’s Guerlain Chicherit.
Seth Quintero won the opening stage, which hampered his performance come the 48-hour Chrono stage
Two days later, 19-year-old Saood Variawa – in just his second Dakar – then snatched the record after a super performance in stage three.
In fact, Variawa’s stage win was made even more impressive given than less than 24 hours prior, his car had arrived at the end of the 48-hour chrono stage in pieces following a head-on-head crash with TGR team-mate and 2009 Dakar winner Giniel de Villiers.
“It was difficult, we had our moment yesterday where we obviously had an unfortunate incident with Giniel, but nonetheless this is a good comeback for us.
“The team did a good job to repair the car, which arrived at the finish in pieces after the stage 2 and they’ve worked amazingly well to get it fixed.”
Variawa, the son of Shameer, a former racer and current boss of Toyota’s South African division, belied his youth by completing a composed drive in the 327km stage.
“We picked them off one-by-one and towards the end we chased down the Ford [of Ekström], caught the Ford and put him under pressure, then he got a puncture. “Unfortunately, we hit a big rock and got a puncture but nonetheless it went well, so we had to take it easy, but it’s still a stage win with around 30s with a puncture so I am happy.”
Lategan sick of the dunes…literally
Despite holding a 10-minute lead over Yazeed Al Rajhi at the rest day in Ha’il, the opening week hasn’t been all plain sailing for rally leader Henk Lategan. The Toyota Gazoo Racing driver had to stop during the dune section of the 48-hour chrono due to motion sickness.
Henk Lategan hinted at his pace with a Prologue win – but has so far beaten the odds to lead the field since the start of the week
“It was difficult, to be honest. In the dunes, our inexperience showed a bit, and I was struggling a bit.
“We didn’t get stuck or anything, but I think I was a little bit slow through the dunes. “Towards the end of the really long dunes section, I got sick, had to stop and get out of the car for a bit. After the dunes cleared, I started enjoying it a bit again.
Lategan has made it clear in the past of his love-hate relationship with the dunes but knows he will need to maximize his time in the soft sand in the second week if he is to hold onto his strong lead.
Especially with dune experts Al Rajhi and Nasser Al-Attiyah waiting in the wings.
“There’s still a long way to go; next week is probably when it gets a bit more sandy and more dunes, where my lack of experience will show a bit, I guess.
“It’s so far so good and the plan is to try and keep it clean for next week.”
Sanz retires from first Dakar in 15 years
Retiring on the opening stage of the Dakar Rally is something no competitor wants to experience, but perhaps none more than Laia Sanz. The multiple enduro bike champion turned four-wheel driver was forced out of the event for the first time in 15 years when she crashed her Century Racing CR6-T.
Like the majority of the field, Sanz was a victim of the software issues that caused the Sentinel proximity warning system to fail on the first stage and, amid plumes of dust from those in front, the Spaniard hit a rock which signaled the end of her rally.
Posting on social media, Sanz said: “It’s a shame to start the Dakar like this. We lost third gear at km 20, but we were getting through the day well, going slowly. Then, in the dust, all the navigation instruments stopped working, so we decided to take it easy to finish the stage, and 70 km from the end, we hit a rock that we didn’t see because of the dust, and we rolled over.”
Sanz produced a gargantuan effort to get her car to the finish and arrived back in the Bisha bivouac with just two minutes to spare before the cut-off time. Unfortunately, the effort proved in vain as an FIA safety delegate inspection found that the roll cage of the CR6-T had been damaged too much to continue.
Laia Sanz's time in the desert was short-lived
“Well, what can I say? The biggest disappointment of my career. I have let a few days pass before writing this post to assimilate and digest everything that has happened. This time it was especially difficult to be on the start line, and it hurts even more to have been left out so soon, for the first time in 15 years.
“We were very competitive in the prologue (without having done any testing this year) and also in the first stage, even with a mechanical problem.”
How America’s best off-roaders are faring
Challenger
Following the success of the Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team USA program, which has helped Mitch Guthrie Jr, Cristina Gutiérrez and Seth Quintero graduate to the Ultimate T1+ category, two new talents made their Dakar debuts in a pair of Taurus T3 Max buggies in the Challenger class.
Californian dirt racer Corbin Leaverton made an impressive start alongside experienced navigator and biker Taye Perry, by winning the prologue and running inside the top three until stage five where he was struck down by mechanical issues after 50km.
His team-mate Gonçalo Guerreiro is still firmly in the mix, profiting from Leaverton’s misfortune to lie second overall at the rest day.
Gonçalo Guerreiro got stuck in the dunes with a tire off the rim on stage two – but is running second regardless
But the class of the field has been the Argentinian pairing of Nicolas Cavigliasso and Valentina Petregarini in the Team BBR Taurus. Former quad competitor Cavigliasso finished ninth in Challenger last year with two stage wins and holds a healthy 28-minute lead heading into the second week.
Cavigliasso has won three out of five stages and could have made it four from five had it not been for a three-minute penalty on stage two. Navigator Petregarini became the first female to win a W2RC title last year when she was crowned co-driver champion and the duo look odds-on favorites to add a Dakar success to their resume.
SSV
The tide in the SSV class appeared to change last year when Xavier de Soultrait claimed victory for Polaris, giving the creators of the SSV something of a one-up on their big rivals Can-Am.
That battle has resumed this year, with Polaris seemingly holding the upper hand so far. But in the SSV class, nothing is certain until the very end of the event, as Sara Price found out in agonizing fashion on the final stage in 2024.
Unfortunately for Sara, things haven’t quite gone her way in the opening week. The brand-new Maverick R, which is making its FIA-sanctioned debut on the Dakar, is rapid, but appears a little fragile at this early stage of its lifespan.
Sara Price won a Dakar stage for the second time in her career this week but suffered reliability woes during the 48-hour Chrono test
Price encountered fuel issues during the first part of the 48-hour chrono, leaving her and navigator Sean Berriman stranded in the desert. The pair responded well by winning stage four.
De Soultrait was one of only two drivers to make it to bivouac D in the chrono: the other being his Sébastien Loeb Racing Polaris Factory Team colleague, American debutant Brock Heger. Mechanical strife then hit De Soultrait on stage four, which gave Heger the lead by over an hour. Heger, who had never raced a road book type rally before but has developed under the tutelage of former BMW Dakar factory rider Jimmy Lewis, leads De Soultrait by 1h21m30s but large time losses are not uncommon.
The Can-Am charge is being led by Alexandre Pinto in third, while three-time Dakar winner Francisco “Chaleco” López Contardo could yet be a major player in the second week, albeit just over two hours off the lead in fourth.
