The second stage of the Dakar takes place over two days around Bisha in Saudi Arabia, with 967 km of special.
The Saudi Yazeed al-Rajhi (Overdrive) took virtual control of the Dakar 2025 car race on Sunday, at the end of the first part of the 2nd stage, contested over two days (967 km of special) around Bisha in Arabia Saudi. The defending champion Carlos Sainz (Ford), who rolled over, and Sébastien Loeb (Dacia), victim of a fan problem, lost big. In the virtual general classification, Al-Rajhi is ahead of the Qatari Nasser al-Attiyah (Dacia) by 1 min 19 and the Swede Matthias Ekström (Ford) by 8 min 55.
Bad day for Spaniard Carlos Sainz and Frenchman Sébastien Loeb. “It’s not ideal. We rolled over a dune. The car is a little damaged and so are we”said Sainz, temporarily relegated to almost an hour from the lead.
The nine-time world rally champion Sébastien Loeb, who has never been crowned in the Dakar, experienced “a big electronic bug” with the failure of two fans. He had to stop for 15 minutes and is provisionally 32 minutes behind the Saudi leader.
At 5:00 p.m. local time (3:00 p.m. French time), competitors were invited to join one of the six “break zones” scattered around the course. They will spend the night at their camp, without being able to benefit from technical assistance, before hitting the road again Monday at sunrise to complete this “48 hour” stage.
Belgium
