Summarize

Qatari Nasser Al Attiyah and Belgian Fabian Lurquin survived a late scare to take their Dacia Sandrider to victory as Nasser scored his sixth Car victory. The pair opened the road on Saturday’s final 105 km dash around Yanbu, Saudi Arabia Saturday morning after Attiyah scored his record 50th Dakar day win Friday, but lost 8 minutes in the day’s third sector. 

The winners consolidated from there on in to ultimately finish well down the day order, but they did enough to claim that sixth overall victory by almost ten minutes from Spaniards Nani Roma and Alex Haro. Their German factory Ford Raptor teammates Mattias Ekström and Emil Bergkvist won the final day to pip French nine-time World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb and Édouard Boulanger’s Dacia to third overall. 

Toyota duo Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings were third on Saturday’s stage from Century Racing crews Matthieu Serradori and Matthieu Baumel and Brian Baragwanath, with Carols Sainz and Luis Cruz’ Ford Raptor sixth.

Al Attiyah previously won in 2011 with Volkswagen, 2015 for Mini and driving a Toyota in 2019, 2022 and 2024. It is former airline pilot Lurquin’s first Dakar car win. Roma in second has won Dakar on both two and four wheels, while Ekstrom in third and fourth placed Loeb are still chasing their maiden Dakar wins. Four-time Dakar winner Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz made it three Factory Ford Raptors in the top five.

Behind them, it was an incredible sixth for minnow South African manufacturer Century’s Factory CR-7 driven by French crew Mathieu Serradori and Loïc Minaudier. Competing on a tiny fraction of the budget of the top factory teams, Serradori and Minaudier even won a stage en route as they held seventh placed Brazilian Lucas Moraes and Dennis Zenz off in another Dacia.

Aussie former bike winner Toby Price and Armand Monleon’s Overdrive machine was best of the army of Hiluxes in ninth from American teammates Seth Quintero and Andrew Short on a disappointing Dakar for Toyota. By contrast, US crew Mitch Guthrie and Kellon Walch saw to all four factory Ford Raptors ending in the top ten. 

Behind them, South African champion Saood Variawa and Frenchman Francois Cazalet were the best of the SVR Hiluxes in eleventh with teammates Brett Cummings and Daniel Mena 16th and Portuguese crew, João Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro 19th. South Africans Brian Baragwanath and Leonard Cremer were fifteenth overall in the second Century Factory CR-7.

Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings dropped 19th after challenging for to the overall lead for much of the distance before a issue slowed their Overdrive Hilux. And SA navigator Stuart Gregory was 58th alongside German Jurgen Schroder in a WCT Amarok.