“Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” is a legendary adage describing how manufacturers winning NASCAR races can translate to successful car sales.

In the Dakar Rally’s case, it seems to be “win on Monday, sell on any other day”. Maybe this article title of “win in Stage 2, sell on Tue(sday)” is a little snappier.

Most of the top class finishers in Stage 2 came from the same manufacturer. This wasn’t a huge surprise in places like Challenger, which is usually a Taurus playground and remained the case on Monday as they occupied nine of the top ten spots, but others received similar treatment.

Toyotas locked out the top five for Ultimate with Seth Quintero leading a convoy of Hiluxes. Toyota Gazoo Racing teammate Henk Lategan trailed by 1:42 in second, followed by defending winner Yazeed Al-Rajhi in his Hilux Overdrive and TGR drivers Toby Price and João Ferreira. The five were separated by just under five minutes, with Ferreira being 4:56 back of Quintero.

Saood Variawa briefly led before suffering a flat (a common theme in this race so far), but managed to add another Hilux to the top ten as he edged out Eryk Goczał, another Toyota driver, by seven seconds for tenth. Guy Botterill, also from the South African arm, ran into hydraulic jack woes.

“I don’t think [the Hilux has] surprised a lot of people with the team at Overdrive plus Glyn Hall giving assistance with the design and development of that car, but obviously time will still tell,” said Red-Lined boss Terence Marsh. “Reliability still comes in It’s a new car, it’s no doubt it’s quick, they were exceptional today. They couldn’t have scripted that result, but they’re only four thousand Ks into testing so I think time will still tell.

“If they’ve got reliability on their side, which nobody can answer now because they haven’t done the mileage, then they are definitely on for a potential win. But there’s a lot that can still happen between now and the end of this event. We still thousands of kilometers to go and it only takes a kilometer or two for things to go south.”

Ironically, a former Toyota driver ended up taking the overall lead as Dacia’s Nasser Al-Attiyah moved into first. He went into Monday trailing Stage 1 winner Guillaume de Mévius by 40 seconds, but ended the day ahead of Quintero by 0:07.

Similarly, Land Rover and Polaris respectively swept the Stock and SSV podiums. Sara Price, whose Stage 1 was plagued by rear arm issues, rebounded to beat her Defender Rally teammates Rokas Baciuška and Stéphane Peterhansel by 1:22 and 1:26, respectively. Peterhansel had led for much of the day before falling back in the closing run.

Like their newer counterparts, vintage Land Rovers went 1–2 in the Dakar Classic. The Land Rover 109 Series III of Karolis Raišys edged out Maxence Gublin’s Land Rover Defender by just two points, moving him into a tie with Marco Leva for the overall lead.

While they had no answer for Defender in terms of pace, Toyota Auto Body was still satisfied with their result as Akira Miura finished 4:41 behind Price. Prioritizing reliability over performance, he and Ronald Basso remain second and third in the Stock overall.

In SSV, LOEB FrayMédia Motorsport held down four of the top five positions. Gonçalo Guerreiro led the way for his maiden Dakar stage victory in the class with Florent Vayssade and Xavier de Soultrait right behind. The RZRs could’ve finished 1–2–3–4 if not for Can-Am’s Francisco López Contardo edging out defending winner Brock Heger by just five seconds.

This pattern of manufacturer dominance also persisted for bikes. It was a duel between the last two Dakar winners as 2025’s Daniel Sanders battled with 2024 champ Ricky Brabec, but the latter lost out in the end as Sanders and his teammate Edgar Canet. With Canet winning Stage 1, the two Red Bull KTM riders sit atop the top two spots for the overall as well, while Brabec and his Honda colleague Tosha Schareina are minutes behind.

Truck and Rally2 bucked the trend. While Truck has been IVECO’s domain as of late, Gert Huzink and his Renault hybrid defeated Vaidotas Žala’s PowerStar by 32 seconds even with a ten-second speeding penalty. Conversely, his cousin Kay hit a large rock that smashed the driveshaft, limiting him to a top speed of 90 km/h in the final 80 kilometers.

Rally2, with its large diversity of marques, saw Hondas place first and third courtesy of Martim Ventura and Preston Campbell with KTM’s Michael Docherty sandwiched between; Neels Theric impressed on his Kove with a fourth ahead of Tobias Ebster’s Hero.

“My plan was to start to increase the pace through the rally,” said Ventura after his maiden Rally2 stage win. “The pace is already good and if I stay like this throughout the rally then I’m happy. The pace is super high, I feel comfortable riding fast and it’s a dream start, in a dream race, in a dream team, so I’m happy. When I think about 14 days of racing and the pace we set today, it’s going to be tough, but we train for this so no complaints about it.”

On the other hand, Stage 2 was a manufacturer’s nightmare for Sherco. Lorenzo Santolino crashed again 313 kilometers into the stage; already riding with an injury sustained on Sunday, the accident knocked him out of the race for good. Rally2’s Harith Noah also exited due to head injuries sustained in a crash, making him 0-for-2 in finishing Dakar since winning the 2024 edition. Bradley Cox is the lone factory Sherco left and he missed the RallyGP top ten in 11th.

Dacia had a mixed bag of results. Al-Attiyah’s eighth propelled him to the top spot for FIA while Sébastien Loeb finished a spot ahead, while Cristina Gutiérrez and Lucas Moraes were 19th and 20th after dealing with flats.

Tire troubles also plagued their rivals at Ford. Mattias Ekström finished the highest of his teammates in 13th after having to overcome three punctures. Carlos Sainz, Nani Roma, and Romain Dumas held 16th through 18th while Martin Prokop and Mitch Guthrie were outside the top 20. To add insult to injury, one of the team’s support trucks piloted by Dušan Randýsek rolled into a ditch; everybody was unharmed and the parts inside were safely transferred to another truck.

De Mévius lost the FIA overall lead to Al-Attiyah because of two flats and a jack failure, forcing him to “drive more cautiously” in the final 150 kilometers to finish 12th. Mini teammate Maria Luís Gameiro was hit by the truck of Martin Macík Jr., resulting in damage.

“We needed a long time to repair it and then had to drive the rest of the stage carefully,” Gameiro explained. “But the Mini absorbed the impact and luckily we’re okay. Of course we’re not very happy because we’ve dropped to the back again, but that’s the Dakar.”

The stage was decent sailing for Century’s factory drivers as Brian Baragwanath avoided tire issues for once as did team client Laia Sanz of EBRO, though Mathieu Serradori had punctures in both his spares and the right rear tire. Baragwanath still scored 14th and a spot ahead of Serradori.

A bigger headache came from Century’s partners at Coronel Rally Team. Tim and Tom Coronel collided with a bridge, causing significant damage to their suspension. The brothers were stranded for six hours as they waited for a truck to come and deliver the parts needed to salvage the run, and made it to the bivouac 30 minutes before midnight.

Bruno Saby’s race was a misadventure he likely hasn’t faced since the Dakar was in Africa. The 1993 winner lost power steering 70 kilometers in, forcing him to will his Taurus to the pit area at halfway to get it fixed. Once that was resolved, he stopped again at KM 300 for over an hour to replace a part that had been weakened by an impact in Stage 1. It wasn’t until well past 9 PM that he made it to AlUla as the 36th and last finisher in Challenger.

Another pair of brothers in Maximilian and Laurence Loder endured a beating in their Puch 280GE. The Dune Tests that most Classic entrants underwent saw the G-Wagon’s clutch and differential housing take damage, the latter despite the addition of protection. The Loders quipped that they now “need to reinforce the reinforcement.”

Dave Klaassen’s crankshaft sensor glitched out, which caused the engine to briefly shut down until he switched to a new sensor. Upon finishing, DaklaPack got to work on rebuilding the gearbox on his DKR EVO because of a problem with the bearings.

Other incidents on Monday included Iside Esteve and Jesús Calleja making late-night protests to the FIA about the start order, Darek Łysek reaching the finish with the hood on his truck missing, Sergei Remennik losing the turbo on his car at KM 100, two members of De Groot Sport suffering injuries in accidents (one fell down a flight of stairs, another was hit by a vehicle in the bivouac), and Valtr Racing Team being questioned by the FIA about a barrel of liquids near them on the course. Valtr was eventually cleared by the stewards once it turned out the container wasn’t theirs.

All seven Mission 1000 entrants went the full 90.68 kilometers for the day and within Eco Mode. Like on the first two days, Benjamin Pascual did so the quickest.

Stage 2 winners

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	203	Seth Quintero	Toyota Gazoo Racing	3:57:16
Challenger	29	338	Lucas Del Rio	BBR Motorsport	4:26:49
SSV	48	404	Gonçalo Guerreiro*	LOEB FrayMédia Motorsport	4:42:45
Stock	74	504	Sara Price	Defender Rally	4:57:33
Truck	49	609	Gert Huzink*	Kuipers-Jongbloed Hybrid	4:42:45

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	1	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	4:13:37
Rally2	6	84	Martim Ventura	Monster Energy Honda HRC Rally2	4:17:30

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Classic	703	Karolis Raišys*	Ovoko Racing	48
Mission 1000	1000	Benjamin Pascual*	Segway Racing	10

Leaders after Stage 2

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	299	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Dacia Sandriders	7:12:16
Challenger	36	305	David Zille	BBR Motorsport	8:09:03
SSV	48	407	Xavier de Soultrait*	LOEB FrayMédia Motorsport	8:23:16
Stock	84	502	Rokas Baciuška	Defender Rally	9:03:54
Truck	54	601	Mitchel van den Brink*	Eurol Rally Sport	8:29:58

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	1	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	7:42:24
Rally2	9	14	Michael Docherty	BAS World KTM Racing Team	7:56:24

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Classic	703 705	Karolis Raišys* Marco Leva*	Ovoko Racing R Team	125
Mission 1000	1000 1002	Benjamin Pascual* Yi Guanghui*	Segway Racing Segway Racing	35

Featured image credit: Frédéric Le Floc’h / DPPI / ASO