Amid all the drama of the opening week of the 2025 Dakar Rally, perhaps the biggest surprise of the 47th edition has been that a relative cross-country unknown, Henk Lategan, has emerged as the leader.
Pre-event favorites Sébastien Loeb and Carlos Sainz have fallen by the wayside following heavy crashes, while Dacia’s sole remaining contender Nasser Al-Attiyah has not been without his own mechanical dramas after breaking a suspension arm on stage four.
Triple South African Rally-Raid champion Lategan has had something of a love-hate relationship with the Dakar, having broken his shoulder in a stage five accident on his debut in 2021.
A subsequent shoulder injury forced him to miss last year’s event, but Lategan has put that disappointment firmly to bed after an impressive first week in 2025, which yielded a prologue win and a lead of over 10 minutes from Yazeed Al Rajhi.
Lategan faces a battle in the second week, with Dakar event director David Castera including more stages in the dunes than during the opening week, particularly in the vast Empty Quarter in the southeast of the country.
It’s a terrain that is less familiar to Lategan, and he knows it.
“There’s still a long way to go,” he said.
“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.”
The lack of experience comes from the unique nature of the South African championship, which features far more of the sort of stages seen on week one of the Dakar, and little to no dunes at all.
Lategan’s main challenge will undoubtedly come from the man they call the “dune master”, Al Rajhi. It’s easy to see why; the Saudi driver knows the Empty Quarter like the back of his hand and has more recent knowledge of the soft stuff after winning the Saudi Toyota Rally Championship just two weeks before the Dakar.
“It was the hardest first week of my career on the Dakar. All the stages were long, tough and difficult everywhere,” Al Rajhi said.
“Last year, I was leading the race until the day before the rest day when the car rolled over due to a suspension problem.
“[In stage five] we were close to the lead, with just a 10-minute gap, which is nothing. In the dunes, we are capable of doing very well”.
What both Lategan and Al Rajhi will want to try and avoid as much as possible is opening the road, especially in the dunes. With the new format of split stages – in which the bike and car categories run on completely separate routes – this task will be made even more arduous.
Therefore, greater time losses are almost certainly on the cards. And looking at the challenge ahead of crews in the Empty Quarter, a 10-minute lead may as well be a 10-second lead.
Al Rajhi is an expert in the dunes, meanwhile leader Lategan recognizes them as one of his weaknesses
Also in the mix will be a recovering Al-Attiyah who, despite sitting 35 minutes off the lead, is a real threat in the dunes.
The Dacia Sandrider driver has not had things go all his way on the opening week. Having won the Rallye du Maroc on the car’s debut in October, the five-time Dakar winner arrived as one of the big favorites.
That’s not to say that the Qatari, navigated by Edouard Boulanger, cannot win. He may trail Lategan by over half an hour, but Al-Attiyah is on a mission.
Had he not received a 10-minute penalty for a missing spare wheel at the end of stage five, which he would have won by 9m59s, Al-Attiyah would have been a dark horse for a second-week charge.
There’s nothing like a bit of adversity to fuel the sort of comeback that would certainly go down in the Dakar history books.
Speaking after stage five, Al-Attiyah said: “Today there was only one way and that was to push and win the stage.
“We are at the rest day now and we wanted to close the gap. I’m really quite happy. We will see for next week because today was very important for our speed and for our car.”
While Dacia Sandriders is ostensibly on a development mission on their maiden Dakar, there is a victory to play for, and Al-Attiyah knows he needs to be there or thereabouts should the top two hit trouble.
Up front, Lategan is a man with a target on his back, but the mechanical strength of his Toyota Hilux has been key to maintaining the lead for as long as he has.
Regarded as one of the strongest vehicles in the Ultimate class, the Hilux is a tried and tested car and is the most developed of the main contenders. It’s a former winner and, even though it’s gone through a transformation to meet the T1+ regulations, it has remained a constant evolution of an extremely well-oiled machine.
“The past two days have been really tough, especially the first half of the marathon. It was such a risky game with getting punctures,” said Lategan.
“The first stage [on Wednesday] was just full of rocks and unfortunately, we got two punctures with about 80 kilometres to go.
“Even so, this car has been unbelievable. It’s a seriously tough car. If you look at the carnage that there has been in the opening week, with cars falling out and breaking down, at the finish line all we could see was Hiluxes coming through, with almost no issues.
“This car is unbelievable; it has undergone some serious punishment and come through with no issues.”
Can Lategan hang on and produce what would arguably be one of the biggest upsets in Dakar Rally history? It would be some story.
“There’s still a long way to go, but [it’s been] so far, so good,” Lategan added. “We’re just trying to keep it clean, and we’ll do the same for next week.”
Let the battle commence!
