Summarize

South African built and run Toyotas have taken complete control of Dakar 2025 Cars race. Saudi home hero Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk led Overall leaders Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings’s Gazoo machine and Argentine duo Juan Cruz Yacopini and Daniel Oliveras home in a dominant 1-2-3 on Wednesday. Lategan now leads Al Rajhi overall.

The focus shifted to endurance for the first half of the marathon stage on Wednesday. With no outside assistance, crews can only help each other on the cars at the overnight bivouac. So self-preservation was the order of the day on a route that started in volcanic terrain before tackling the canyons of Al Ula en route to that remote overnight bivouac.

There was overnight drama when Sébastien Loeb and Fabian Lurquin’s Dacia Sandrider failed its FIA inspection after rolling on Tuesday. The French WRC legend’s dream of winning the Dakar is over for another year as he joins Ford star Carlos Sainz and lady Hero Lala Sanz’ Century on the list of cars to exit after failing that chassis structure integrity test.

Toyota four, Al-Rajhi, Lategan, former Dakar bike heroes Toby Price and Sam Sunderland and stage Chrono 48 stage winner, Rokas Baciuska and Oriol Mena’s Hiluxes led Daniel Schröder and South African Henry Köhne’s Kyalami-built WCT Amarok in a shock fifth. Running well back in the pack, Brazilian Century driver Marcelo Gastaldi and Adrien Metge later popped up among the leading Toyotas with Raptor duo, Ford crew Mitch Guthrie and Kellon Walch and privateers Martin Prokop and Viktor Chytka in the top six. 

Nasser Al Attiyah was in trouble as he lost time in his Dacia Sandrider, while Tuesday winner Saood Variawa’s Toyota and Ekstrom’s Ford also slipped back. Then Price and Sunderland’s storming run ended when they were left stranded without any more spare tyres.  

Toyota trio Al Rajhi led overall leader Lategan and Argentine duo Juan Cruz Yacopini and Daniel Oliveras led the way home from Prokop and Krotov. Mathieu Serradori and Loic Minaudier, and SA crew Brian Baragwanath and Leonard Cremer’s SA built Century CR7s sandwiched the penalised Guthrie and Mattias Ekström and Emil Bergkvist’s Ford Raptors ahead of Lucas Moraes and Armand Monleon and Giniel de Villiers German Dirk von Zitzewitz’ Gazoo Hiluxes in tenth and eleventh,

Schroder and Köhene soldiered home 14th in the Amarok, SA Toyota crew Guy Botterill and Dennis Murphy were 17th, while Aliyyah Koloc and Sebastien Delaunay were flirting with the top 30 in the best of the Red-Lined REVOs. Lategan did not post a time at the penultimate waypoint. Was it a glitch, or did he miss the point? 

Overall, day winner Al Rajhi has now moved up to second, just under six minutes behind Lategan, with Ekstrom now third from the impressive Serradori, Moraes and Guthrie. Baragwanath is provisionally 11th, de Villiers 15th, and Schröder, Variawa and Botterill 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th as the crews stay over at the no-service Marathon Stage overnight, before Thursday’s 428 km run to Hail, deep in the Saudi desert.