For the first time since Stage #1, the Dakar Rally’s FIA lead has changed hands. A frustrating Stage #7 sliced Henk Lategan’s lead over Yazeed Al-Rajhi, which the former marginally recovered by winning the next day.

Stage #9, however, finally broke the dam. A navigation mistake and a flat tire sank Lategan to an 11th-place run on Tuesday, while Al-Rajhi finished third and 13 minutes ahead. As Al-Rajhi entered Tuesday trailing by 5:41, he is now ahead of Lategan by 7:09 with three stages to go.

“Very difficult day for us. It was not supposed to be so bad,” Lategan said. “We made a error right in the beginning, we got lost, then while we got lost, we had a puncture. Just really, really bad from us. I’m a little bit disappointed. Not a great day. That was one of our worst days of this Dakar.

“It’s not over. It’s still a long way to go and still a lot of race miles to go.”

Tuesday’s woes seemed to extend to Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa as a whole. Guy Botterill, who finished behind Lategan in Stage #8, was knocked out by a rollover at KM 272. Saood Variawa mustered a 20th.

T1.2 also saw a lead change as Christian Lavieille retired for good after an engine problem. He had been the top driver in the subclass before being set back by mechanical trouble on Monday then the coup de grâce the next day. Pierre Lachaume, a last-second replacement for Jean-Pierre Strugo, now leads T1.2 in 20th overall and 16th in Ultimate.

Akira Miura won in Stock for the third day in a row, narrowing his two-hour deficit to Ronald Basso to just 16 minutes.

Luciano Benavides scored the stage win for bikes, coincidentally a year after winning Stage #9 for KTM’s sister Husqvarna. His teammate and leader Daniel Sanders had gotten lost after the refuel.

Their Rally2 teammate Edgar Canet lost his category’s stage win to a five-minute penalty, which promoted Mathieu Dovèze to the top.

Elsewhere in RallyGP, Tosha Schareina and Aaron Marè both crashed. While Schareina, whose accident threw him off his bike at KM 20, got back on his bike and continued to finish seventh, Marè hurt his right leg at KM 187 and had to retire. Romain Dumontier and Tobias Ebster received over 49 minutes in time credits for stopping to help Marè.

“I didn’t have too much visibility with the sand and the early morning light,” Schareina rexplained. “After that, Ricky (Brabec) caught up with me and we rode together until the end. I lost time but it’s part of the game. After that crash, if you are all okay and continue riding then it’s super good, so I was happy that I could do that.”

Nasser Al-Attiyah won the FIA stage to notch the 49th of his Dakar career. He is one away from tying Ari Vatanen and Stéphane Peterhansel for the most by a driver.

In another example of the so-called “Dakar spirit”, Floris de Raadt’s Citröen 2CV suffered a broken driveshaft that caused the left front wheel to come off and roll around in the desert. Fellow Dakar Classic driver Henry Favre showed up in his Mitsubishi Pajero to provide assistance.

Stage #10 winners

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Time
Ultimate	1	200	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Dacia Sandriders	2:52:59
Challenger	28	308	David Zille	DaklaPack Rallysport	3:26:50
SSV	46	404	Francisco López Contardo*	Can-Am Factory Team	3:38:10
Stock	107	500	Akira Miura*	Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body	4:26:01
Truck	22	601	Aleš Loprais*	InstaTrade Loprais Team De Rooy FPT	3:20:51

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Time
RallyGP	1	77	Luciano Benavides	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	3:15:38
Rally2	8	21	Mathieu Dovèze	BAS World KTM Racing Team	3:27:56

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Dakar Classic	703	Dirk van Rompuy	TH-Trucks Team	24
Mission 1000	1040	Jordi Juvanteny	KH-7 Ecovergy Team	20

Leaders after Stage #10

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Time
Ultimate	1	201	Yazeed Al-Rajhi	Overdrive Racing	45:06:54
Challenger	14	301	Nicolás Cavigliasso	BBR Motorsport	50:06:07
SSV	22	425	Brock Heger*	Sébastien Loeb Racing	51:13:20
Stock	87	501	Ronald Basso*	Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body	71:31:27
Truck	16	600	Martin Macík Jr.*	MM Technology	50:14:19

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Time
RallyGP	1	4	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	47:45:34
Rally2	8	73	Edgar Canet	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	49:19:10

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Dakar Classic	700	Carlos Santaolalla	Factory Tub	554
Mission 1000	1040	Jordi Juvanteny	KH-7 Ecovergy Team	200

Featured image credit: Antonin Vincent / DPPI