2025 Dakar Rally
Stage 6 – HAIL > AL DUWADIMI
Saturday’s special had the chance to restore minds and bodies but competitors were straight back into it at daybreak, and it was a day that broke some… Stage Six kicked off the second week of the Dakar Rally, with a demanding 829-kilometre route from the bivouac to Al Duwadimi.
Beginning with a long sector on fast plateaus, followed by technical, rocky sections, where Monster Energy Honda HRC’s Ricky Brabec made his mark with his career 11th stage win, teammate Adrien Van Beveren only 23-seconds behind and Hero’s Jose Cornejo Florimo completing the top three, Daniel Sanders managing to retain a top-10 result.
Heavy hitter Ross Branch crashed out of the race at km 84, ending his 2025 Dakar efforts, and that was also where Bradley Cox, 2024 W2RC champion in Rally 2, finally threw in the towel after limping on following a crash right after the start.
Dakar leader Sanders initially fell victim to some tricky roadbook notes, straying from the route which cost him time. However, quickly getting back up to speed, the Australian posted the second-fastest time at the 96-kilometre mark. Losing a little time in the second half of the 605 km special, Sanders dropped to ninth for the day as he crossed the line. However he retains his lead in the overall standings with an advantage of nearly 12 minutes, down from 15.
Daniel Sanders – P9
“I got off to a bit of a rough start this morning as I got lost near the beginning of the special. It’s always tough to try and get back into a rhythm after the rest day, but I’m happy with my result today. It gives me a great starting position for tomorrow, so I’ll definitely make the most of that. It was cool having such variety in the stage from the really rocky first part to the dunes. I’m feeling great and excited for tomorrow.”
Reigning champion Ricky Brabec let his experience do the talking, claiming the stage win and moving up two places to fourth overall. It was the second consecutive stage victory for Monster Energy Honda HRC in Saudi Arabia after Van Beveren’s first place on Friday making it 112 stage victories for Honda since Christian Desnoyers kicked off their winning ways back in 1979 on the original Paris-Dakar.
The early part of the stage saw plenty of chopping and changing at the top as the riders looked to take the advantage heading into the transfer section, but Ricky Brabec powered his way through the final phase among the dunes to take his 11th Dakar Rally stage victory and his first of 2025. Although he stopped to assist Ross Branch, the American as he kept his nerve to move closer to the overall podium as he now is just 23’18” off the lead.
Ricky Brabec – P1
“We’re not in first, so we’re not controlling the game, but we’re just trying to do our best to make up time to better our overall position. I think there’s other people out there playing games and right now we’re just trying to manage ourselves and do the best we can. With regard to the day I’m happy with my riding and navigation. I’m also happy that Ross is OK, I saw where he crashed and pushed the rescue button. I saw the helicopter was just across the valley so I figured for me, it was better to ride across to it for a few kilometres and get the helicopter rather than try to phone them. At the end of the day he’s good which is the main thing. We still have six days of racing with a lot of time to make up, so we’ll do our best and hopefully get some bonus time tomorrow.”
Following a steward’s decision yesterday to re-instate time to Adrien Van Beveren’s stage time from stage five the day before, the Frenchman was declared the winner of that stage during the rest day to further boost the morale of the squad as they went in to the second week of the rally today.
It worked too as Adrien had his best day so far on this 2025 Dakar Rally as he opened the entire stage and led it from start to finish setting a blistering pace across his favoured sandy tracks to rack up every single one of the 6’11” bonus time available.
Although narrowly pipped to the top spot today by Brabec, he has chipped away at his time in the general standings and gained a further five minutes on the overall lead of the rally while remaining third. Hero’s Jose Ignacio Cornejo Florimo just 28-seconds behind the Honda rider for the stage.
Adrien Van Beveren – P2
“I’m very very happy about my day. I opened all day and you know when you start first and you arrive still leading, it was a tough day of navigation. We had sand and dunes at the end as well, so normally you tend to lose a lot of time when you have to open that, but I’m really proud of what I’ve done today and looking forward to tomorrow and the next few days. I’m feeling really good on the bike but there are still a lot of kilometres to do so we will keep focused.”
Second overall heading into the rest day, Tosha Schareina piled on the pressure and kept his head down throughout the 605 km course to arrive at the finish line just 2’27” behind Brabec. Although he continues to hold his second overalll, the gap to the leader Sanders has been cut to 11’46” so he’ll look to the spend the coming days pushing hard to reduce that time even further.
Tosha Schareina – P4
“It was a hard day again with the two parts of the stage. The first part was more about navigation and the second was super fast with sandy sections and dunes. It was crazy out there with a lot of local cars. I knew that we were cutting down to Daniel and the guys in front, so I tried to push, but also wanted to arrive safely here at the bivouac so I’m ready for tomorrow’s stage.”
Luciano Benavides rounded out the day’s top five, and put his head down and pushed hard right from the start, maintaining a consistent pace over the challenging and varied terrain. The result moved the KTM 450 Rally rider up one place in the overall standings to sixth, just over 30 minutes down on teammate and rally leader Sanders.
Luciano Benavides – P5
“That was pretty good, I made a small mistake this morning and Nacho [Jose Ignacio Cornejo] passed me, so we then rode together for most of the special. I pushed hard and managed to catch the leader by the end. The first part was tricky, and I had to be super careful to stay on the bike. After the rest day, it’s great to get back into it, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the week.”
Sixth place saw the top performing Sherco of the day in the hands of Lorenzo Santolino, with seventh place the top KOVE rider in the form of Mason Klein, followed by eighth-placed Skyler Howes who got through the first part of the stage with a small navigation error and suffered some bike set up issues in the dunes in what was a frustrating stage for the American rider.
Skyler Howes – P8
“It was a challenging day, I’ve said that probably every single day to be totally honest. The morning actually started out fine, the first section was going well even though I made a bit of a small navigation mistake. I was making my way back and gained a little bit of time back, but in the dunes I had some bike setup issues and so I lost a bit more time and didn’t really nail that second half. It was a bit frustrating as it was a super long day out there, but I’m happy to be back in the bivouac to rest and gear up for another day tomorrow.”
Behind Sanders, and completing the top ten on a day was Pablo Quintanilla, where just 5’46” separated him from the stage win. Amongst the front runners early on, Quintanilla was caught out by many spectators’ cars in the dune section and in the ensuing confusion he lost a couple of minutes while he got himself back on track.
Pablo Quintanilla – P10
“We had many hours on the bike but it was good. The day was in two parts, the first part was a fast hard packed piste with some riverbeds and tricky navigation between the canyons, then we had a big neutralisation, almost 200km. The second part was sandy with some dunes and very fast. Honestly, I felt good, I enjoyed the day. When we got to the dunes there were a lot of people and cars and it got me confused and I ended up in the wrong valley which lost me some minutes to find the right way. Without that I think my riding was good so I’m happy for that.”
Pushing hard over the rocky terrain of the first half of today’s special, Rally2 challenger Edgar Canet had a small crash which forced him to take a few minutes to recover. The young Spaniard regrouped and ultimately secured fourth place in the Rally2 category and 17th overall. Canet maintains his class lead with a 17-minute margin and retains his position within the top 10 overall standings.
Edgar Canet – P17
“Today was a long day on the bike, and it was tough! I had a small crash 45 kilometres into the special, so I had to stop for a few minutes. I managed to get back into a good rhythm though and I’m happy with my performance. We have six stages ahead of us still so let’s see how they go!”
Aussie Toby Hederics finished the day in 28th, 26m16s off leading pace and now sits 22nd in the overall standings, just over three hours off leading pace.
Fellow Aussie Andrew Houlihan finished the day in 97th, and now sits 93rd in the standings.
Isle of Man TT road race star James Hillier continues to compete despite his earlier crash, and finished 73rd for the stage, now sitting 98th in the overall standings.
Withdrawal of Sam Sunderland and Toby Price
“After a tough battle, the team made the difficult decision to exit the race. On Stage 5, Sam suffered a concussion, which worsened today following a new impact. In order to protect the co-driver’s health, the crew has decided to withdraw from the race.”
Next – Stage Seven
Tomorrow’s stage seven has been amended and the riders will now start with a 188 km road section to get them to the new start line before they’ll tackle 411 km against the clock as they head up into the mountains on a loop from Al Duwadimi.
2025 Dakar Rally Stage Six Results
| Pos | Rider | Nat | Bike | Time |
| 1 | Ricky Brabec | USA | HONDA | 5h 00′ 51” |
| 2 | Adrien Van Beveren | FRA | HONDA | +0’23” |
| 3 | Jose Ignacio Cornejo Florimo | CHL | HERO | +0’51” |
| 4 | Tosha Schareina | ESP | HONDA | +2’27” |
| 5 | Luciano Benavides | ARG | KTM | +3’36” |
| 6 | Lorenzo Santolino | ESP | SHERCO | +3’47” |
| 7 | Mason Klein | USA | KOVE | +4’22” |
| 8 | Skyler Howes | USA | HONDA | +5’09” |
| 9 | Daniel Sanders | AUS | KTM | +5’43” |
| 10 | Pablo Quintanilla | CHL | HONDA | +5’46” |
| 11 | Aaron Mare | ZAF | HUSQ | +7’06” |
| 12 | Tobias Ebster | AUT | KTM | +8’15” |
| 13 | Dusan Drdaj | CZE | KTM | +9’19” |
| 14 | Toni Mulec | SVN | KTM | +9’37” |
| 15 | Stefan Svitko | SVK | KTM | +9’47” |
| 16 | Rui Gonçalves | PRT | SHERCO | +12’28” |
| 17 | Edgar Canet | ESP | KTM | +12’58” |
| 18 | Neels Theric | FRA | KOVE | +15’45” (2m P) |
| 19 | Mathieu Doveze | FRA | KTM | +16′ 14” |
| 20 | Daniel Nosiglia Jager | BOL | RIEJU | +16’55” |
| 21 | Konrad Dabrowski | POL | KTM | +18’21” |
| 22 | Romain Dumontier | FRA | HONDA | +20’26” |
| 23 | Jacob Argubright | USA | HONDA | +20’32” |
| 24 | Jeremy Miroir | FRA | FANTIC | +21’09” |
| 25 | Benjamin Melot | FRA | KTM | +23’21” |
| 26 | Emanuel Gyenes | ROU | KTM | +25’15” |
| 27 | Arunas Gelazninkas | LTU | HOTO | +25’58” |
| 28 | Toby Hederics | AUS | KTM | +26’16” |
2025 Dakar Rally Standings after Stage Six
| Pos | Rider | Time (P) |
| 1 | DANIEL SANDERS | 35h18’49” |
| 2 | TOSHA SCHAREINA | +11’46” |
| 3 | ADRIEN VAN BEVEREN | +19’11” (2m P) |
| 4 | RICKY BRABEC | +23’18” |
| 5 | SKYLER HOWES | +27’25” |
| 6 | LUCIANO BENAVIDES | +30’08” (2m P) |
| 7 | PABLO QUINTANILLA | +40’52” |
| 8 | JOSE CORNEJO | +44’39” (2m P) |
| 9 | LORENZO SANTOLINO | +1h0928” (1m P) |
| 10 | EDGAR CANET | +1h16’59” (6m10 P) |
| 11 | TOBIAS EBSTER | +1h28’55” |
| 12 | STEFAN SVITKO | +1h30’44” (1m P) |
| 13 | RUI GONÇALVES | +2h12’52” (25m P) |
| 14 | ROMAIN DUMONTIER | +2h14’14” (2m P) |
| 15 | JACOB ARGUBRIGHT | +2h16’07” |
| 16 | NEELS THERIC | +2h28’05” (17m P) |
| 17 | DUSAN DRDAJ | +2h33’36” (10s P) |
| 18 | TONI MULEC | +2h35’49” (24m P) |
| 19 | KONRAD DABROWSKI | +2h51’59” (6m P) |
| 20 | DANIEL NOSIGLIA JAGER | +2h56’52” (2m10 P) |
| 21 | MICHAEL DOCHERTY | +3h05’24” (30m P) |
| 22 | TOBY HEDERICS | +3h05’56” (3m10 P) |
2025 Dakar Rally Route/Schedule
| 2025 Dakar Rally Route/Schedule2025 Dakar Rally Route/Schedule | ||||
| Stae | Date | Start/Finish | Total | Special |
| S7 | Jan 12 | Al Duwadimi > Al Duwadimi | 742km | 478km |
| S8 | Jan 13 | Al Duwadimi > Riyadh | 737km | 487km |
| S9 | Jan 14 | Riyadh > Haradh | 589km | 357km |
| S10 | Jan 15 | Haradh > Shubaytah | 640km | 120km |
| S11 | Jan 16 | Shubaytah > Shubaytah | 507km | 275km |
| S12 | Jan 17 | Shubaytah > Shubaytah | 131km | 61km |
