The venerable Sébastien Loeb turned 51 years old on Wednesday. Unfortunately, his birthday present was an overturned Dacia and yet another W2RC win slipping out of reach.

Stage #4 saw Loeb in pursuit mode as he tried to close the 2:46 gap on teammate and overall leader Nasser Al-Attiyah. Things seemed to go well for him early on as he was the fastest through KM 41, then disaster struck when it turned out he had missed a waypoint. He turned around to go through it, but missed a dune amid the dust and rolled.

While permitted to run the final stage on Thursday, he will no longer be in contention for the win and his role relegated to supporting Al-Attiyah if disaster strikes. Al-Attiyah finished third behind Eryk Goczał and Lucas Moraes, the latter beating him by eight seconds to make a small dent in the overall.

Moraes now trails Al-Attiyah by 41 seconds with one stage to go.

Goczał inherited the stage lead after Loeb’s accident. Although making his W2RC debut in the Ultimate class, the 20-year-old proved he belongs as he beat Moraes by 2:29.

“We won with a big margin so I am really happy,” said Goczał. He is racing on his own after his father Marek suffered a back compression from a hard landing in Stage #3. “Yesterday was difficult because my father had an accident, he had to go to the hospital, he had to go back home to Poland with my mom. We took a big decision to stay, to represent our family, that’s why I dedicated this stage to my father, he taught me everything I know and today we showed it, we represented the family.”

Loeb wasn’t the only contender to fall in Stage #4. True to Antanas Kanopkinas’ suspicion after Tuesday, Quad leader Marek Łój received a six-hour penalty for changing his left rear tire (which is forbidden for marathon stages) that had gotten shredded during Stage #3.

Consequently, Łój lost both the Stage #4 win and the overall lead to Kanopkinas. CFMOTO teammate Gaëtan Martinez is the only other Quad rider within half an hour of Kanopkinas for the overall, but Stage #5 being the shortest at 167 kilometers makes it unlikely to close the gap barring disaster.

“The two marathon days were really tough. Everyone had problems—some more, some less,” recapped Kanopkinas. “Our main challenge was fuel consumption, while other competitors faced issues with fuel supply, punctured tires, or mechanical failures. In the end, the results depended on how well each of us managed those problems. We handled ours in a way that put us in first and second place.

“The first hundred kilometers, I saved fuel. The second hundred, I pushed as fast as possible. The third hundred, I just tried to reach the finish. My exhaust fell off, burning my leg and melting the surrounding plastic. I’ve brought back plenty of work for the mechanics. Personally, I feel extremely exhausted.”

FIM two-wheelers also had a lead change. Tosha Schareina lost the top spot for bikes after a difficult day as the first rider on course, getting lost and finishing last in RallyGP. With Daniel Sanders winning the stage, while Schareina is now fifth and 9:11 back.

“It was definitely the worst day to open the stage as it was so tricky,” Schareina explained. His teammate Ricky Brabec sits second behind Sanders by 7:23. “I made a navigation mistake 50 kilometers in, Luciano (Benavides) caught me and we rode together to the finish line along with Ricky, who had also caught us. I definitely think I did a bad strategy in this rally opening this stage, but it’s part of the game and we will try again tomorrow.”

The closest margin of victory on Wednesday came in SSV as Jeremías González Ferioli passed Mansour Al-Helei in the final 36 kilometers to beat him by just 21 seconds. However, Al-Helei was set back by suspension problems early in the race and is thus unable to contend for the overall, where Ferioli leads by over an hour on Enrico Gaspari.

Dania Akeel holds a 4:45 advantage over Pau Navarro in Challenger after finishing runner-up to Yasir Seaidan on Wednesday. Michael Docherty also maintains his lead in Rally2 as he scored another stage win by nearly eight minutes; he leads Konrad Dąbrowski by 28:16.

Like Loeb, Aliyyah Koloc rolled her car down a dune. She received a €15,000 fine (€10,000 of which is suspended until the end of the 2025 season barring no repeats) after two of her team’s support vehicles went out onto the route to help. Her team representative explained he had contacted race control for permission and was granted, though the Clerk of the Course added they had to wait until later since the race was ongoing; the info couldn’t be relayed to the team in time. It was Buggya’s second fine of the ADDC after getting deducted €2,500 because the media car got stuck in the dunes during the Prologue.

Hedda Hosås’ W2RC debut was cut short by an alternator failure that prevented her from starting Stage #4. Jatin Jain was also unable to start the leg after his bike stalled the day before; spending Wednesday trying to diagnose the issue, he found it was a damaged crankcase that will keep him from racing on Thursday too.

Miroslav Zapletal received a one-minute penalty for exceeding the maximum turbo pressure three times. The same also occurred in Stages #1 and #3.

Stage #4 winners

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Time
Ultimate	1	213	Eryk Goczał	EnergyLandia Rally Team	2:52:23
Challenger	9	309	Yasir Seaidan	BBR Motorsport	3:03:44
SSV	18	415	Jeremías González Ferioli*	Can-Am Factory Team	3:21:47

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Time
RallyGP	1	4	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	2:51:14
Rally2	4	22	Michael Docherty	SRG Motorsports	2:56:21
Quad	30	103	Antanas Kanopkinas	CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team	4:28:16

Leaders after Stage #4

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Time
Ultimate	1	200	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Dacia Sandriders	12:22:30
Challenger	11	310	Dania Akeel	BBR Motorsport	13:25:23
SSV	14	415	Jeremías González Ferioli*	Can-Am Factory Team	13:38:42

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Time
RallyGP	1	4	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	12:14:22
Rally2	8	22	Michael Docherty	SRG Motorsports	12:35:30
Quad	23	103	Antanas Kanopkinas	CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team	17:33:09

Featured image credit: Irina Petrichei / Edophoto