The 47th Dakar Rally came to a conclusion Friday with the 12th stage. While it has been 18 years since the race last finished in its namesake city, the ASO decided to do a throwback to those halcyon days for the final stage by conducting a mass start with competitors starting together rather than one at a time.

Bikes went out together in groups of 15 every ten minutes, while four cars started each five minutes and two trucks for every two minutes. From there, they tackled a 62-kilometer timed section in the dunes.

Despite the short length and it being the last day, not everyone had a smooth trip. Justin Gerlach noticed his bike’s wheel had been partially shredded and the mousse damage; in “Toby Price style,” he patched it up with tape and cable ties. Still, it kept him from joining the mass start and he held back while the others blew past him, which he remarked made him “look like a novice rider in the helicopter shots.” He stopped twice to check on the tire before continuing to the finish.

Adam Peschel had a frightening accident less than 25 kilometers before the finish; he admitted he does not remember much of the crash, but was told he flew three meters into the air. Fellow Czech rider David Pabiška, who stopped to provide help, said he thought Peschel had died when he checked on him. Despite the crash, Peschel managed to bring the bike home 77th in Rally2.

The triangle on the rear arm of Aliyyah Koloc’s REVO broke with 20 kilometers to go. Matters initially improved after fixing it before more trouble struck.

“When we got going, after about four or five kilometers, I felt something strange,” Koloc explained. “I checked the car and saw that the wheel hub had cracked and started to smolder. So we had to replace the wheel hub as well. Plus, the rear brakes were literally fried. That’s why we could only use the front brakes and had to lock the differential. Fortunately, there weren’t too many big dunes in the last fifteen kilometers, so we managed to get to the finish. Sometimes we had to turn around because we didn’t have power on all four wheels. I had to go around the dunes more, and I didn’t want to damage the differential. The finish was very tough, but we are finally here.”

Koloc’s Buggyra teammate Martin Šoltys had a compressor break on his Tatra due to “material fatigue”. By the time he got out to assess the damage, “there was a big oil trail behind us, I felt completely helpless.” Karel Poslední stopped to give him a compressor, and Šoltys ultimately reached the finish as the last car on track.

“A helicopter even came to check on us, and a member of the organizing team asked if we planned to continue,” recalled Šoltys. “But by then, we were already closing the side panels and were good to go.”

As he did in Stage #10, Michael Docherty was the fastest bike despite competing in Rally2. Since the World Rally-Raid Championship’s inception in 2022, he and Danilo Petrucci remain the only Rally2 riders to win a bike stage outright; Docherty has done so thrice, with the first coming at the 2024 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge.

Lucas Moraes won the stage for FIA. While it only resulted in a marginal improvement in the overall as he moves up from 15th to 14th, the win still earned him five bonus points in the W2RC. Paul Spierings topped Challenger, ending the race on a high note after being eliminated in the Chrono Stage.

Mathieu Dovèze, who finished the stage 12th in Rally2, was the first person to complete the Dakar Rally as the first arrival at the finish.

Stage #12 winners

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Time
Ultimate	1	203	Lucas Moraes	Toyota Gazoo Racing	54:14
Challenger	6	310	Paul Spierings*	Rebellion Spierings	57:24
SSV	14	405	Sara Price	Can-Am Factory Team	58:53
Stock	105	501	Ronald Basso*	Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body	1:18:19
Truck	39	601	Aleš Loprais*	InstaTrade Loprais Team De Rooy FPT	1:04:23

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Time
RallyGP	2	42	Adrien Van Beveren	Monster Energy Honda Team	55:14
Rally2	1	22	Michael Docherty	BAS World KTM Racing Team	54:11

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Dakar Classic	700	Carlos Santaolalla	Factory Tub	0
Mission 1000	1000	Benjamín Pascual	Segway Racing	20

Overall winners

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Time
Ultimate	1	201	Yazeed Al-Rajhi	Overdrive Racing	52:52:15
Challenger	14	301	Nicolás Cavigliasso	BBR Motorsport	57:50:21
SSV	18	425	Brock Heger*	Sébastien Loeb Racing	59:13:11
Stock	83	500	Akira Miura*	Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body	83:34:10
Truck	16	600	Martin Macík Jr.*	MM Technology	58:42:58

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Time
RallyGP	1	4	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	53:08:52
Rally2	8	73	Edgar Canet	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	54:49:21

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Dakar Classic	700	Carlos Santaolalla	Factory Tub	586
Mission 1000	1040	Jordi Juvanteny	KH-7 Ecovergy Team	249

Featured image credit: Charly Lopez / ASO