Yazeed Al-Rajhi is one step closer to winning the Dakar Rally on his home soil after retaking the FIA lead on the penultimate stage Thursday. With how short the final leg is, he only needs to avoid disaster to ice the victory.

Stage #11 was a tight battle between Al-Rajhi, Nasser Al-Attiyah, and Mattias Ekström as the three were separated by less than two minutes. By the end, Al-Rajhi was unable to beat the other two and had to settle for third.

What mattered more, however, was that Henk Lategan finished fifth and 8:38 behind Al-Rajhi. Lategan had regained the overall lead on Thursday after losing it the day before, but was clinging onto a 2:27 advantage. Now, Al-Rajhi is on top by 6:11. Given Stage #12 only has 61 kilometers in timed sections, Al-Rajhi only needs to race smart and not crash or have a mechanical issue.

Perhaps making his predicament all the more frustrating, Lategan had a clean day for someone who had to start closer to the front than Al-Rajhi. Ergo, he simply lost the lead on pace.

“That was about what we could do. Here and there, we could push a little bit more and take a bit more risk, but I mean, the car’s in one piece, we didn’t miss any waypoints,” Lategan explained. “We got up most of the dunes, one or two we had to try a second time, but it’s been a very good day for us and it’s been an awesome race.

“I think our road position just counted against us a little bit today. We couldn’t have finished much quicker. We finished right behind Lucas (Moraes) who was opening the road, so even if we were going quicker we would have been opening the road in any case. Good day in general.”

Daniel Sanders can’t afford any missteps either on the bike side. He has been the FIM’s overall leader for every stage so far, while Tosha Schareina won Stage #11 to slice the margin between them from 16 to nine minutes.

Leaders in other categories have more breathing room. Nicolás Cavigliasso and Brock Heger respectively lead by over one and two hours in Challenger and SSV, while Martin Macík Jr.’s hopes of repeating in Truck grow closer to reality with two and a half hours on Mitchel van den Brink. Edgar Canet leads Tobias Ebster by 35 minutes for Rally2.

Of course, a retirement on Friday can easily turn the tide. Stock was proof of this on Thursday when Ronald Basso failed to finish; while he trailed Akira Miura by two horus and 29 minutes going into Stage #11, his DNF drops him to nearly 40 hours back.

Thursday’s stage was delayed for over an hour due to fog that prevented helicopters from taking off. The FIA, FIM, and Trucks all ran different routes as planned, though the Truck race was cut off at the refuel point 138 kilometers in.

Even with the shorter length for their class, none of the service trucks were able to clear the first dune section and had to turn back. Martin Šoltys’ Tatra truck, a T5.1, got stuck in said dunes after the crankshaft broke.

“We wouldn’t have been able to fix it on the spot, so we turned around and went down,” Šoltys explained. “That was the end of today’s stage for us. There was a time limit of six and a half hours to complete the stage, and we wouldn’t have made it even with the repair. Plus, we didn’t even have the required part with us. It would have taken us three or four hours to fix it there, but the guys in the bivouac will do it in peace.

“After today, I was very disappointed and sad. The car had been working perfectly for the whole 14 days. We were determined to call it a day and not continue tomorrow. But when I arrived at the bivouac and saw the mechanics looking so sad, I reconsidered my decision. We will continue tomorrow and fight in the last 60 km stage. We’ll try to at least achieve a good stage result because we’re already out of the overall standings.

“On the other hand, it’s only the Dakar. Life goes on, and we’ll be back next year.”

Stage #11 winners

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Time
Ultimate	1	226	Mattias Ekström	Ford M-Sport	4:19:27
Challenger	8	300	Yasir Seaidan	BBR Motorsport	4:32:09
SSV	10	405	Sara Price	Can-Am Factory Team	4:35:06
Stock	102	500	Akira Miura*	Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body	7:43:14
Truck	†	601	Aleš Loprais*	InstaTrade Loprais Team De Rooy FPT	2:22:41

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Time
RallyGP	1	68	Tosha Schareina	Monster Energy Honda Team	2:12:04
Rally2	7	21	Mathieu Dovèze	BAS World KTM Racing Team	2:19:40

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Dakar Classic	703	Dirk van Rompuy	TH-Trucks Team	0
Mission 1000	1030, 1040	Yoshio Ikemachi, Jordi Juvanteny	HySE, KH-7 Ecovergy Team	20

Leaders after Stage #11

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Time
Ultimate	1	201	Yazeed Al-Rajhi	Overdrive Racing	51:53:36
Challenger	14	301	Nicolás Cavigliasso	BBR Motorsport	56:44:09
SSV	17	425	Brock Heger*	Sébastien Loeb Racing	58:04:54
Stock	74	500	Akira Miura*	Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body	82:10:15
Truck	†	600	Martin Macík Jr.*	MM Technology	55:02:04

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Time
RallyGP	1	4	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	52:13:34
Rally2	8	73	Edgar Canet	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	53:52:43

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Dakar Classic	700	Carlos Santaolalla	Factory Tub	586
Mission 1000	1040	Jordi Juvanteny	KH-7 Ecovergy Team	240

Featured image credit: Florent Gooden / DPPI