The Dakar 2025 has officially hit the gas. For its sixth edition in the Saudi desert, the famous rally-raid opened Friday with a prologue won by Daniel Sanders on motorcycles and Henk Lategan in cars, with Frenchman Sébastien Loeb finishing 7th. Starting at Bisha in the southwest of the country, the Dakar will cross Saudi Arabia to end on January 17 in Shubaytah, in the desert dunes of the Empty Quarter, on the border with the United Arab Emirates.
In the car category, the prologue timer does not count for the general classification but is strategic because the first ten finishers can choose their starting order for the first stage on Saturday. At the wheel of his Toyota Hilux, the South African Henk Lategan completed the 29 km special in 15'28'', ahead of the wire (one second) the Swede Mattias Ekström who had won the prologues in 2023 and 2024. two heavyweights from the Dacia team, the Qatari Nasser al-Attiyah and the Frenchman Sébastien Loeb arrive 3rd respectively and 7th, with 20 and 33 seconds difference from the first. For his ninth participation in the Dakar, the Frenchman, nine-time world rally champion, hopes to finally climb onto the highest step of the podium, which has so often slipped away from him so narrowly (3rd in 2019 and 2024, 2nd in 2017, 2022 and 2023).
This ranking in the prologue“it's not too bad. We wanted to be in the top ten to have the possibility of choosing a place for tomorrow. We had a clean drive, no mistakes”, declared the 50-year-old Alsatian when he got out of the car. The defending champion, Spaniard Carlos Sainz, finished 25th, at 1'14″.
Saunders, stronger on the motorcycle side
On the motorbike, the Australian Daniel Sanders, winner of the last Morocco rally and who aims to become the second Australian to win the Dakar on a motorbike after Toby Price (2016 and 2018), completed the special on KTM in 16'51'' . He was 12 seconds ahead of the Botswanan Ross Branch (Hero) and the young 19-year-old Spaniard Edgar Canet (KTM). The American Ricky Brabec (Honda), winner of the 2024 Dakar, ranks 4th at 18 seconds while the Frenchman Adrien Van Beveren comes 8th. The American Ricky Brabec (Honda), winner of the 2024 Dakar, ranks 4th at 18 seconds while the Frenchman Adrien Van Beveren comes 8th.
The race will get tough on Saturday with the first real stage. On the menu: 500 km, including 412 special. For its 47th edition, the legendary race created in Africa by Thierry Sabine has 800 competitors competing aboard 440 vehicles entered in the different races. On 45% of the mileage of the specials, the routes for motorcycles and cars have been differentiated in order to reduce the risk of collisions but also to complicate the navigation of cars, which will not be able to follow the tracks of the faster motorcycles.
The Dakar Rally pitched its tent in Saudi Arabia in 2020 under a contract whose value was not revealed but which sparked controversy due to the ultra-conservative kingdom's human rights failings.
