Martin van den Brink knows he’s running out of time if he wants to win the 2025 Morocco Desert Challenge. Despite a spirited effort to close the gap in Stage #7, Kay Huzink managed to pull away in the end and increase his lead.

After overall Truck leader Gert Huzink retired from Stage #6 due to a fire caused by the plastic diesel filter being shreedded, cousin Kay inherited the top spot with 37 minutes on van den Brink. Going “flat out all day”, van den Brink managed to catch Huzink in the dunes when the latter sufferd a flat tire.

Huzink returned the favor by passing him back after van den Brink got stuck on a dune. This kept Huzink in the physical and timed leads upon reaching the refuel. With 81 kilometers until the finish, he explained his strategy was to “drive in a conservative way and not take any more risks due to the lead we have.”

At the end, Huzink beat van den Brink by an hour and three seconds. Going into the final day, he has an advantage of 37:55. This gives him some breathing room but he knows he can’t afford any misstep. Van den Brink is certainly aware of this too.

“We were fighting with him all day,” said van den Brink. “It was quite a fast stage with 60 kilometers of beautiful dunes where you had to pay close attention. We came second, a minute behind. That was all we could do. We had two big jumps, but the truck held up well on them.

“Tomorrow is still a serious stage. You are not done until you reach the finish. We are not giving up yet. You never know what can happen in this sport.”

While Martin’s hopes might be coming down to a miracle, his son Mitchel has things all but locked up on the SSV side barring trouble.

Erik Van Loon was running second until the gearbox broke after 80 kilometers, knocking him out of the race. Mechanical issues had also forced him to retire from the lead at the 2024 MDC, which van den Brink won too.

Oscar Ral is now second overall for SSVs, but 1:44:18 back of van den Brink. Geoff Minnitt, who had been third behind van den Brink and Van Loon, had a tough day as he finished 11th, being knocked out of the top ten by a one-minute penalty.

“The podium was within reach, which makes this extra bitter,” Van Loon commented. “But we also gained a lot of confidence from how we raced this week.”

Unlike their four-wheeled counterparts, the Bike overall experienced a major upheaval on Friday when leader Arnau Lledó crashed and broke his clavicle. Amaury Baratin won the stage to regain the top spot.

Valentin Sertilhanges, who was third overall, inherited second and finished the stage in third, 5:46 back of Baratin and Nicolas Horeaux. While Sertilhanges has not won a stage so far, he still has an outside chance to catch Baratin as he trails by 7:34, the slimmest margin between first and second of the four main categories (Lionel Baud leads Simon Vitse by 25:50 in Cars).

Stage #7 winners

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Total Time
Bike	101	Amaury Baratin	Horizon Moto 95	5:03:07
SSV	201	Mitchel van den Brink	Eurol Rally Sport	4:03:39
Car	303	Simon Vitse	MD Rallye Sport	3:53:31
Truck	505	Kay Huzink	Kuipers-Jongbloed Hybrid Dakar Team	4:46:41

Leaders after Stage #7

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Total Time
Bike	101	Amaury Baratin	Horizon Moto 95	30:27:47
SSV	201	Mitchel van den Brink	Eurol Rally Sport	25:55:09
Car	306	Lionel Baud	X-raid Mini JCW Team	25:14:08
Truck	505	Kay Huzink	Kuipers-Jongbloed Hybrid Dakar Team	27:35:48