Sanders takes seven-minute lead into rest day at Dakar 2025

2025 Dakar Rally

Stage 5 – ALULA > HAIL

Update

Following the release of updates results, seeming to remove two and eight penalties on Adrien Van Beveren and Daniel Sanders respectively, the official results have been reshuffled, with Van Beveren taking the stage win and Sanders moving up to sixth – extending his overall standings lead. Updated stage results and standings listed below. Report below is as originally published and does not reflect the updated results, no official statement seems to have been released at this time on the revisions.

Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Luciano Benavides won the final day of week one at the 2025 Dakar Rally.

Daniel Sanders maintained a narrowed but still significant overall lead in the standings, the Australian finishing Thursday and heading into the rest day seven-minutes clear of Tosha Schareina and almost 18-minutes clear of third-placed Ross Branch.

Following his victory yesterday, Daniel Sanders was tasked with opening stage five and the 30-year-old tackled the 428-kilometre special with a clear focus on gaining time and delivering another solid performance. Facing challenging navigation with complex roadbook notes and hidden waypoints, Sanders consistently recorded top-10 times at each checkpoint.

While he earned nearly six minutes in bonus time, an eight-minute penalty for speeding dropped him to 12th place. Despite this setback, and more problems with his electronic road book, Chucky retains a seven-minute overall lead in the rally and is well-positioned for Saturday’s stage six, where his strong starting position offers an excellent opportunity to chase down the riders ahead.

Daniel Sanders – P12

“I had a lot of fun today, the stage was great and I really focused on my riding while I was opening. I had another issue with my roadbook tablet unfortunately at around the 400-kilometre mark, so I had to stay behind the guys leading so I didn’t get lost. I’m feeling really good after this first week, my experience has really helped me this year and it’s all coming a lot easier to me now. I can’t wait for the rest of the rally!”

As the 12th rider to start from the marathon bivouac in AlUla, Luciano Benavides quickly got to work chasing down his rivals, posting the fastest time at the 87-kilometre mark. Luciano was then locked in a closely fought battle for the lead, initially crossing the line in Ha’il as second-fastest. A subsequent two-minute penalty awarded to Adrien Van Beveren meant that Benavides was promoted to first place, marking his first stage win of the 2025 Dakar, and seventh overall.

Luciano Benavides – P1

“That was a really good day for me, starting from 14th helped as I was able to catch a lot of the riders in front of me but I could still see some tracks. I feel good on the bike and I’m happy with my riding, so we are at a good place before the rest day. Strategy will play a big part next week as you have to judge which stages will be the best to try and make up time on, and which ones to take it steady on. I feel like I am still in the fight, there’s a long way to go to the finish and I’m in a really good rhythm now so I can wait to see what the next week will bring.”

Adrien Van Beveren adapted well to the conditions and the complicated navigation to be up amongst the lead out riders before speeding off into the distance to rack up some important bonus time.

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Adrien Van Beveren – P2

“I feel good, I’m really happy about what I’ve achieved yesterday and today. The beginning of the Dakar has been really tough. I tried my best every time to accept the situations and I really like to give my best, so I think the level I could give on the track was good. I hope this will pay off at the end.”

Nacho Cornejo finished the week with two consecutive stage finishes on the podium. The official Hero rider still in the race in ninth overall 43’40’’ behind the leader, with teammate Ross Branch finishing the day fourth and holding third in the overall standings.

Nacho Cornejo – P3

“It was a long stage with lots of navigation but also some rocks in places. I was third to set off and after refuelling, there were four of us with Daniel Sanders, Tosha Schareina and Adrien Van Beveren. From that point, it was almost like a motocross race, with each rider overtaking the other, searching for the right track… it was fun. I’m happy that everybody took it in turns with the navigation; several years ago, that sort of thing didn’t happen.”

After losing a chunk of time yesterday, Ricky Brabec rode a composed ride to the finish line at Ha’il, which saw him fifth, just three and a half minutes off the best time of the day, slicing nearly ten minutes off his overall time deficit as the rally heads towards the finish at Shubaytah.

Ricky Brabec – P5

“It’s the way the rally is going for us, but all is good. I’m here, I’m healthy, I’m happy with my navigating and riding but I know the results probably don’t show how I feel. Things aren’t working out in my favour so it’s been tough and mentally exhausting. Now we’re at rest day in Ha’il, we’ll push on for the best result we can get at next week’s finish.”

Skyler Howes was a further 1’10” back from Brabec in sixth position as the American made a slight error as he relied on the tracks already made in the sand, something that’s easy to do at the speed covered by factory riders in rally-raid. Venturing off on a wrong turn into a canyon consequently lost him around six minutes but after the refuelling stop he managed to salvage precious time back to keep himself in the top five overall.

Skyler Howes – P6

“Today was frustrating for me, I started so far back that I started relying on the tracks in front of me for navigation, which is not really a smart thing to do. But when you’re in the back like that and because we lost a lot of time yesterday, I was pushing super hard to catch back up some time today. Around 150 kilometres I got to an area where all the tracks kind of disappeared and I was behind the road book enough that I went down the wrong canyon and had to circle back. I probably lost about six minutes just in that one little spot. I did pretty good after the refuelling, I knew the navigation was going to be tricky again and there were a few areas that I had to kind of wander a little bit to find the good way, but I didn’t have to turn around or anything.”

Tosha Schareina set off in second behind Sanders, struggling in the early part of the stage as a navigational error threw him off the ideal course but he dug deep and regained his composure to catch up with the leading riders on the correct route and rode as part of a group to the finish at Ha’il, for a seventh place finish.

Tosha Schareina – P7

“Today was the second part of the marathon stage, it was pretty good. At the beginning I made a navigation mistake and after that Nacho Cornjeo and Adrien caught me. We were riding together again like in previous days and after that we caught Daniel Sanders. There was 400km of tricky navigation, again some rocky parts and 100km of super sandy sections, but it was pretty good. I didn’t lose too much time with the other riders, so now it’s time to stop and enjoy the rest day before we’re ready to battle again.”

Determined to round out week one of the 2025 Dakar on a high, Edgar Canet immediately set about catching his closest Rally2 competitor, Michael Docherty. The pair fought hard, exchanging the class lead for the majority of the 428-kilometre timed special, but ultimately it was Canet who came out on top.

Claiming his second stage win in the Rally2 category, Edgar retains the overall class lead by a comfortable 16 minutes. The young Spaniard has also moved into 10th place in the overall standings, an impressive feat on his debut Dakar Rally campaign.

Edgar Canet – P8

“That was a nice long stage with different terrains like sandy pistes and lots of rocks, and I didn’t make any big mistakes which I’m happy with. Some of the navigation points were quite difficult, but I’m really happy in general with my rhythm and how this stage went. It feels amazing to be leading Rally2 after this first week, and I’m excited for the rest day tomorrow to recover! This week has been super long with a lot of hours on the bike, but I have a good feeling for the rest of the race. Of course the aim is to win Rally2, especially after my performance this week, so I’ll keep pushing hard!”

Stafen Svitko and Michael Docherty rounded out the top-10 for the stage, followed by Pablo Quintanilla, Sanders, Lorenzo Santolino, Jacob Argubright and Konrad Badcrowski.

Australia’s Toby Hederics finished the day 24th, 24m40s off leading pace, and 2h37m off the overall lead in 23rd.

Fellow Aussie Andrew Houlihan finished the day in 64th, just shy of two-hours off the stage winning pace and now sits 96th overall, 17-hours in arrears.

With riders now safely at the Ha’il bivouac, tomorrow’s rest day will see them all regroup and prepare for the second week of racing across Saudi Arabia and the final stretch to the finish line at Shubaytah.

Two time motorcycle winner of the Dakar, Toby Price, is discovering the particularities of the Ultimate Car class, alongside Sam Sunderland, especially how to look after the vehicle’s tyres. After an eleventh placed finish on stage 5, the Australian and his English co-pilot are 26th in the provisional general classification.

Toby Price

“We had a much better day today, but yesterday killed us. It is what it is, unfortunately it didn’t work this time round. I’m just disappointed because I let everyone down who’s on the side of the car who made all this possible. We’ll just try and get good stage results now and take it from there. It hurts for the moment, but we’re looking forward to the rest day tomorrow. Today’s stage was not too bad. We got through it, we lost some time but we were a long way back. We’re just in management mode at the moment. We didn’t really have enough tyres after yesterday’s stage, so we just tried to get through and keep it safe. We’re looking forward to the rest day tomorrow and the rest of next week. Hopefully we can do well on some stages and see what we can do.

“On the 48 HR Chrono stage I did 940 kilometres on all the same tyres and didn’t get one single flat and then in the space of about thirty kilometres I got four flat tyres, I couldn’t work out why. The last one I got was in a 30 km/h speed zone, I think I dropped into a riverbed and sliced my last tyre. It’s super frustrating, a bummer for the first week. But other than that, we’ll regroup and get ready for the second week. I feel 100% safer in the car, when we’re going through those stones, I’m super glad I’m in a car. But there’s so many moving parts in these things, but when you’re rolling around on what is basically a bag of air, you’re putting your life on the line with a tyre. You can spend triple the amount, you can spend ten million dollars but then you get four flat tyres and your day is done. It is what it is. I just guess I’m bummed out for the sponsors that are on-board with it. We’ll try and see if we can get a couple of good stage results to keep them happy. It’s been a tough first week, but we’ll keep at it.”

Updated – 2025 Dakar Rally Stage Five Results

2025 Dakar Rally Stage Five Results

2025 Dakar Rally Standings after Stage Five (Amended)

2025 Dakar Rally Route/Schedule