Stage 5 was 350 kilometers, but the trucks only did about 130.

The leg was split into two parts, the second of which had white dunes and extra soft fesh-fesh that were too dangerous for the trucks to enter. Consequently, they only did the first half before heading back.

Paolo Calabria won the shortened Truck stage by 15 minutes over Gerrit Zuurmond, who got stuck and suffered a flat tire.

“That lost us about ten minutes so we unfortunately couldn’t finish first today, but the lead we have is still big enough so far,” Zuurmond’s navigator Tjeerd van Ballegooy commented. “We saw quite a few buggies and trucks struggling through it because there were a lot of dunes back to back. But it went well. Everyone is back in the bivouac fairly early, it was a fun day.”

The first section, where everyone raced together, was mostly mixed terrain before transitioning into sand as they neared the dunes. Nicolas Martinez, who missed Stage 4 with a mechanical issue incurred the day before, was the fastest in SSV by 11:49 on Daniel Pernot.

Abdul el Karim Ben Hassan set the fastest overall time of all competitors, but it was a close battle between him and Vincent Thijs. The two were separated by just nine seconds.

Car Open wasn’t the only category where the margin of victory was less than a minute either. Gaëtan Martinez held off Antanas Kanopkinas by 54 seconds, while Christian Pastori topped Urban Jerkič for Enduro by 00:34; Edvard Sokolovskij was third in the latter and only 2:22 off.

Some crewmen on Magdalena Zając’s Proxcars TME Rally Team decided to “join the race” with their MAN service truck. Following Zając’s “Kitty” Hilux, the “Maniek” truck even passed two trucks before the trailer started dragging it down the dunes. Even then, Maniek still reached the finish without issue.

Stage 5 winners

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Total Time
Car Open	229	Agostino Rizzardi	CountrysideWays	3:43:44.37
Car Limited	221	Abdul el Karim Ben Hassan	Tunis Automobile Club	3:03:54.00
SSV	418	Nicolas Martinez	Aravis Rallye Raid	3:35:39.71
Truck	501	Paolo Calabria	Eagle Racing Team	3:18:59.00
Enduro	8	Christian Pastori	Compass Racing Team	3:48:51.26
ATV	17	Gaëtan Martinez	CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team	4:13:12.97

Featured image credit: RBI Media