Amid the raging battle for the 2025 Dakar Rally victory, there’s a game of poker being played at the front.
Tactics have been in force since the opening day of the 47th edition and they continue to play a crucial role in the outcome of the event with just two stages left to run.
At the end of stage 10, there were nervous smiles, concern, disappointment and a lot of unknowns. Or at least that’s how it came across. The real game is being played behind the emotion. The cards are being held closer to the chest than ever.
No sooner had Overdrive Racing’s Yazeed Al Rajhi taken the lead of the 47th edition, than he lost it again to Toyota stablemate and long-time rally leader Henk Lategan today.
Al Rajhi dropped around nine minutes to Lategan on the Haradh to Shubaytah stage, which now leaves him and navigator Timo Gottschalk trailing by 2m27s.
But Al Rajhi isn’t worried. In fact, for the vast majority of the Ultimate crews, they were willing and ready to lose chunks of time today, knowing that if all goes well in tomorrow’s penultimate stage, they will regain that and much more.
Al Rajhi is hoping his game is stronger than everyone else’s.

Al Rajhi lost the lead he won yesterday, but isn't in the least bit worried
“We got stuck [in the sand] because we were taking it [too] easy,” he said post-stage. “Everything is going well, that’s the most important [thing].
“I have a good position for tomorrow, I hope. No pressure, I hope everything will go well.”
On the flip side, there is Lategan whose plan was also not to place high on the stage and therefore be one of the crews opening the road in the penultimate stage, a 257km test through the dunes around Shubaytah.
“It was not the plan to go quickly today, we were actually going at a very nice and steady pace and then [Martin] Prokop came past us, so we thought ‘okay, maybe we are going too slow’ so we followed him,” Lategan said.
“We’ll see, hopefully there are some other guys behind us who are quicker so that they can open tomorrow, but all in all, not too bad.
“The trick is now we need a good road position for tomorrow, we really, really need some guys that are quicker than us so that we don’t have to open the stage tomorrow. That’s the only worry that’s still left.”
Nani Roma and Alex Haro Bravo won the stage, giving M-Sport Ford an historic first-ever Dakar stage victory, but that fact was secondary to the context of the victory fight.
Roma’s team-mate Mattias Ekström still hangs onto third place in the overall classification, having profited from a navigation error from Dacia’s Nasser Al-Attiyah and Edouard Boulanger around 10km into the stage.

Roma delivered a maiden Dakar stage win for the M-Sport and Ford partnership
“It was tough but not any tougher than the other stages, I made a big mistake at 10km, there were two identical boxes, and I just jumped the line and took the wrong cap for 3km,” admitted Boulanger. “I was just focused on my cap because there was a hidden waypoint to catch behind. And by the time I realised my mistake we lost a lot of time.”
For a navigator as experienced and talented as Boulanger, it’s a rare error and potentially costly one, particularly given that stage 10 was hardly the most demanding from a navigation standpoint.
“I’m very disappointed, but what can you do?” said Al-Attiyah. “We could have had a great stage, but we’ll see what position we’re in and what we can do tomorrow.
“Every day is very important, and we had a good pace, but we lost a lot of time. This is the most disappointing day of my life.”
The hyperbole from Al-Attiyah may well have been a heat-of-the-moment comment at best, a bad poker face at worst, but the truth of the matter is that he and Boulanger have left themselves in a better position to attack Ekström and Bergkvist for the final step on the podium tomorrow.
And with a much shorter 61km loop stage to conclude affairs on Friday, the penultimate test of the Dakar could well be the effective end to the rally as a contest.
“It was a good stage, a normal stage,” Al-Attiyah continued. “We didn’t take any risks and we will see what the positions will be tomorrow.
“The terrain is very difficult, but we’ll see tomorrow, we are still in the game, and we will do our best. I hope to have a good road position for tomorrow.”
Across the board, the tactics are in full flow (one could even say, Overdrive) but it has set up a thrilling conclusion to the Dakar Rally, with the winner still very much undecided.
One issue in the dunes and it could all change.
Overall Classification (after stage 10)
1 Henk Lategan/Brett Cummings (Toyota Gazoo Racing) 47h29m57s
2 Yazeed Al Rajhi/Timo Gottschalk (Overdrive Racing Toyota) +2m27s
3 Mattias Ekström/Emil Bergkvist (M-Sport Ford) +26m46s
4 Nasser Al-Attiyah/Edouard Boulanger (Dacia Sandriders) +30m21s
5 Mitch Guthrie Jr/Kellon Walch (M-Sport Ford) +54m05s
6 Mathieu Serradori/Loïc Minaudier (Century Racing CR7) +59m41s
7 Juan Cruz Yacopini/Dani Oliveras Carreras (Overdrive Racing Toyota) +1h33m30s
8 Seth Quintero/Dennis Zenz (Toyota Gazoo Racing) +1h36m45s
9 João Ferreira/Filipe Palmeiro (X-raid Mini JCW) +2h08m35s
10 Brian Baragwanath/Leonard Cremer (Century Racing CR7) +2m17m06s