Lucas Moraes is on thin ice following a misunderstanding with a cell phone, but he certainly isn’t phoning it in from now on. On the contrary, he staved off a rapidly closing pair of Ford Raptors in Mattias Ekström and Mitch Guthrie to win Stage #7.

Moraes’ hopes of contending for the Dakar Rally overall were thrown out the window in Stage #6 by a mechanical issue that cost him nearly two hours. To add insult to injury, the FIA announced Sunday that another hour had been tacked onto his Stage #5 time and faces disqualification for a repeat because navigator Armand Monleón had received a cell phone from a “totally unknown person” while in the neutralization zone, which was shown to Moraes before being handed back.

Article 9.1 of the FIA Cross-Country Rally Sporting Regulations forbid most electronic devices from being inside the car due to the risk of them being used to gain an unfair advantage. Phones specifically must be turned off while in the Selective Section, while the top ten cars must seal theirs away in a pouch before each stage (which multiple drivers violated and thus received the same penalties). Monleón apologized, saying he had forgotten the consequences in the “heat of the race” until it was too late.

With their phones safely tucked away and switched off, Moraes and Monleón’s focus turned to salvaging what they could by racking up stage points for the W2RC. Their Toyota Hilux was the fastest through the third checkpoint at KM 138 and they never looked back.

Ironically, while Moraes had the FIA breathing down his neck, race officials had the field doing the same for them. Most leaders got lost due to an error in the roadbook at KM 158.53 that caused the leaders to get lost. The FIA tried to make amends by removing that section from the final times.

“We ended up looking like clowns in the circus,” Ekström remarked.

Overall leader Henk Lategan had initially benefitted from the others’ misfortunes, only for the FIA’s involvement to hamper him. He finished 15th and watched as his gap dwindled from 7:16 to just 21 seconds over Yazeed Al-Rajhi, who placed sixth.

“Brett (Cummings) and I also got lost for quite a few minutes, but then we decided to go all the way back,” Lategan explained. “We went really far back and then followed the road book again and managed to find the way and find the waypoint first.

“We overtook all of the cars that started in front of us in the stage, and we were opening the stage for most of the way. I’m not sure what’s happening, but it looks like they took out a piece of the stage. If that’s going to be the case, we’re going to lose out. We did a good job in finding the waypoint first, and now it looks like they’re basically applying a penalty to the people that managed to find the waypoint, because then after that, we had to open.

“It will be really unfair, but let’s see. Maybe they’ll fix it.”

The FIM was a bit more stable with not as much drama. Instead, the bikes watched as Red Bull KTM Factory Racing put on a masterclass with RallyGP and Rally2 overall leaders Daniel Sanders and Edgar Canet finishing 1–2.

Despite his youth, Canet set a blazing time that placed him just 3:36 behind his older teammate and beating Tosha Schareina—who had the benefit of a time bonus—by 11 seconds. Sanders and Canet held off a convoy of Hondas as Schareina was followed by Pablo Quintanilla and Adrien Van Beveren.

Mason Klein retired after 319 kilometers with an engine problem, making him zero-for-two at Dakar on a Kove after a tumultuous race.

Mechanical issues also struck Xavier de Soultrait, who lost power steering and has now fallen to over an hour and 35 minutes behind teammate Brock Heger in the SSV overall.

Stage #7 winners

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Time
Ultimate	1	203	Lucas Moraes	Toyota Gazoo Racing	4:01:49
Challenger	22	325	Corbin Leaverton	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	4:27:54
SSV	35	407	Jeremías Gonzalez Ferioli*	Can-Am Factory Team	4:34:50
Stock	107	500	Akira Miura*	Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body	5:51:03
Truck	33	601	Aleš Loprais*	InstaTrade Loprais Team De Rooy FPT	4:33:31

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Time
RallyGP	1	4	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	4:10:33
Rally2	2	73	Edgar Canet	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	4:14:09

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Dakar Classic	700	Carlos Santaolalla	Factory Tub	40
Mission 1000	1040	Jordi Juvanteny	KH-7 Ecovergy Team	20

Leaders after Stage #8

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Time
Ultimate	1	211	Henk Lategan	Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa	37:13:08
Challenger	13	301	Nicolás Cavigliasso	BBR Motorsport	40:35:04
SSV	22	425	Brock Heger*	Sébastien Loeb Racing	41:56:42
Stock		501	Ronald Basso*	Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body	59:00:20
Truck	17	600	Martin Macík Jr.*	MM Technology	41:19:05

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Time
RallyGP	1	4	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	39:29:22
Rally2	10	73	Edgar Canet	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	40:49:57

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Dakar Classic	700	Carlos Santaolalla	Factory Tub	494
Mission 1000	1040	Jordi Juvanteny	KH-7 Ecovergy Team	160

Featured image credit: Antonin Vincent / DPPI