Overdrive Racing’s Yazeed Al Rajhi is within touching distance of becoming the first Saudi Arabian driver to win the Dakar Rally after moving back ahead of his Toyota Hilux rival Henk Lategan on the penultimate stage.
Al Rajhi and navigator Timo Gottschalk entered the 279km Shubaytah loop stage with a deficit of 2m27s to Lategan but a better road position on the majority dune test enabled them to carve into the Toyota Gazoo Racing driver’s advantage early on before assuming the virtual lead by the 138km marker.
From then on, Al Rajhi was able to extend his gap over Lategan to over six minutes with just 61km left to run on Friday.
Al Rajhi and Gottschalk have played a strong tactical card throughout the 47th edition of the Dakar, and only took the lead for the first time after stage nine, before relinquishing it on the following day.
Knowing that the penultimate stage of the event would be critical to the overall outcome, Al Rajhi appears to have judged his attack to perfection.
We didn’t go out without a fight, but that was about all that we could manage today.Henk Lategan, Toyota Gazoo Racing
For Lategan, it will be a bitter pill to swallow given that the triple South African Rally-Raid champion had held the overall lead since the second stage before losing it on Tuesday. Having moved back to the top of the standings on Wednesday, he and navigator Brett Cummings were well aware that those starting further back on stage 11 would be at an advantage.
That proved to be true: while Lategan drove strongly from 11th on the road, Al Rajhi had an easier ride of it from 33rd, and closed to within 44-seconds of Lategan’s overall lead inside the opening 45km.
By 94km, it was down to just four seconds and the writing was on the wall. Al Rajhi subsequently moved into the lead at the 103km marker, but only by 1m24s. That meant that, if Lategan could somehow keep the same sort of deficit to Al Rajhi as Al Rajhi had to him ahead of the final stage, the victory may well have been a realistic goal.
As it turned out, Al Rajhi stamped his authority on the overall classification and now holds the cards heading into the last stretch.
“We are a little bit too far ahead on the road because we finish just behind the road openers, so there’s not that much we could have done today,” Lategan reflected.
Lategan felt he'd done all he could in the dunes – but Al-Rajhi's road order advantage proved decisive on the penultimate day
“I tried my best and, in the end, we were looking for lines and opening the roads with Lucas [Moraes].
“We didn’t go out without a fight, but that was about all that we could manage today. I am definitely not the sand and dune expert, but we made it through to the end in one piece.
“It’s amazing, we’ve had a really, really good Dakar. Overall, I am happy with how it’s gone, we’ve had some ups and downs but in the end, it’s been a really good race.”
Away from the victory battle, M-Sport Ford’s Mattias Ekström and Emil Bergkvist struck an important blow in their scrap with Nasser Al-Attiyah and Edouard Boulanger for the final step on the podium.
Ekström won his first stage of the 2025 edition, giving the Ford Raptor T1+ its second successive stage victory, beating the Dacia Sandrider by just over 40-seconds. In the overall classification, Ekström holds a 4m16s margin over the five-time winner, who suffered two punctures, heading into the last day.
Ekström scored Ford's second stage win in a row, following on from Nani Roma's scratch time on Wednesday
“I’m happy with my day, I feel like Emil and myself have done our best this Dakar, it has been a tough 14 days,” Ekström said.
“We have to take the result that we have, and I would not have done anything different. For sure, the small hiccups are costly sometimes but everyone else has had some issues too.
“But I am happy with my performance and also for Emil’s.”
While outright victory appears out of the question, both Ekström and Al-Attiyah are within striking distance should anything happen to Al Rajhi and Lategan. Ekström remains just 22m34 off Al Rajhi, while Al-Attiyah is 26m50s away from the lead.
Such has been the competitiveness of this year’s event, that Mitch Guthrie – who had sacrificed a lot of time on stage two when he stopped to help Carlos Sainz after the latter’s crash – is fifth overall and just under an hour away from Al Rajhi.
Indeed, the 6m11s margin between Al Rajhi and Lategan – should it remain the same – would be the closest since the 2020 edition when Sainz beat Al-Attiyah.
The closest victory margin in the history of the Dakar is just 2m12s, back in 2010 when Sainz took his first Dakar win at the wheel of a Volkswagen Touareg.
Overall Classification (after stage 11)
1 Yazeed Al Rajhi/Timo Gottschalk (Overdrive Racing Toyota) 51h53m36s
2 Henk Lategan/Brett Cummings (Toyota Gazoo Racing) +6m11s
3 Mattias Ekström/Emil Bergkvist (M-Sport Ford) +22m34s
4 Nasser Al-Attiyah/Edouard Boulanger (Dacia Sandriders) +26m50s
5 Mitch Guthrie Jr/Kellon Walch (M-Sport Ford) +59m26s
6 Mathieu Serradori/Loïc Minaudier (Century Racing CR7) +1h10m08s
7 Juan Cruz Yacopini/Dani Oliveras Carreras (Overdrive Racing Toyota) 1h58m13s
8 João Ferreira/Filipe Palmeiro (X-raid Mini JCW) +2h15m59s
9 Seth Quintero/Dennis Zenz (Toyota Gazoo Racing) +2h19m47s
10 Brian Baragwanath/Leonard Cremer (Century Racing CR7) +2h53m26s