Edvard Sokolovskij is a man on a mission, and that objective is to not finish second in another RBI Sport rally in 2025.

In a frantic battle, Sokolovskij won his class in the penultimate stage on Wednesday. The top three in Enduro were separated by just 46 seconds with Urban Jerkič being 41 back of Sokolovskij followed by Christian Pastori.

Dương Nguyễn-Khoa finished fourth and 3:16 back of Sokolovskij, enabling the latter to whittle down the margin in the overall. However, since Nguyễn-Khoa entered Wednesday leading by 13:09, he still has a fairly safe gap of 8:25 with one day to go. Jerkič sits third and 10:18 behind Nguyễn-Khoa.

Of course, Nguyễn-Khoa cannot afford too many missteps even with some time on his opposition. While some rallies tend to have their final stage as one of the shortest, Stage 7 at the Fenix Rally is the third longest at 420 kilometers.

While Enduro is shaping up to be a dogfight, the gaps between first and second in the other five categories are much wider. The next closest battle is in Car Open, where Agostino Rizzardi has dominated and holds a 42:51 advantage over Vincent Thijs. Juraj Varga has almost an hour and a half on Tomas Kubiena in SSV.

Every other class leader has at least a couple hours. At the same time, they still need to actually finish the last day to secure their wins.

Stage 6 was split into two parts with an unusually long three-hour, 45-minute neutralization zone in between (which at least gave everyone a scenic drive that they couldn’t exactly enjoy two days prior). The first was mostly fast and twisty chotts while the second was bumpy.

A bridge on the course ended up collapsing, which cost Truck overall leader Gerrit Zuurmond time. He ultimately finished second, 2:48 behind stage winner Tom Heuer.

Otherwise, the stage went well for those like the two Quads entered. Antanas Kanopkinas beat his teammate Gaëtan Martinez by only 21 seconds, and both had every reason to be pleased since their roadbooks didn’t glitch out for once.

Stage 6 winners

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Total Time
Car Open	229	Agostino Rizzardi	CountrysideWays	1:54:22.77
Car Limited	221	Abdul el Karim Ben Hassan	Tunis Automobile Club	2:11:52.81
SSV	418	Nicolas Martinez	Aravis Rallye Raid	1:55:46.90
Truck	506	Tom Heuer	Sueptitz Motorsport	2:14:10.82
Enduro	91	Edvard Sokolovskij	AG Dakar School	1:57:40.82
ATV	10	Antanas Kanopkinas	CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team	2:09:55.15

Featured image credit: Plamen Kodrov / RBI Media