The DAF Bull is a legendary truck that’s one of the most iconic from the Paris–Dakar Rally era. 41 years later after it debuted, Tomasz Białkowski carried on Jan de Rooy’s legacy in style when he beat everyone—including those in cars—to win Stage 3 of the Dakar Classic.

Tuesday’s stage began with Białkowski tying for second with Shammie Baridwan through the first of three splits, both just one point behind then-joint overall leader Karolis Raišys. Raišys fell back to 11th in the second segment while Białkowski finished second and four points behind Maxence Gublin in his Land Rover Defender 110. Gublin also topped the third and final section while Białkowski was eighth.

Białkowski racked up 13, 44, and 40 points across the splits for a total of 97. Although Gublin recorded 70 points (16, 40, 14), he had 30 more added as the time control for being the first car on track. Thus, Gublin finished with 100 points and in second.

The Bull is the first truck (i.e. a Truck category, so pickup trucks that compete in the Car class like the FJ Protruck don’t count) to win a stage outright since the Dakar Classic’s introduction in 2021. Such a feat has never happened for a truck in the Dakar Rally itself, though de Rooy’s TurboTwin came close to a few cases in the late ’80s. While Team de Rooy uses IVECO in the Rally nowadays, they maintain a vintage truck division called DAF de Rooy Classics that partnered with Białkowski and Kamena Rally Team for the 2026 Classic.

“I feel good about it. We did great,” said Białkowski. “Two second places and a seventh or eighth, so we’re very happy. We didn’t collect too many points. We’ll see if we increase our lead and how it looks in the standings, but we are very satisfied.

“There were no major incidents, just a slight problem with one tire, but we’ll check that when we get back.”

Even with the stage win, Białkowski sits outside the overall top ten in 11th and 66 points behind Josef Unterholzner’s Pajero. The Bull had fallen behind a bit early on after tire and equipment issues in Stage 1. Regardless, he still leads the truck-based H1T class with a 236-point advantage over Jaime Martinez, who finished sixth for Stage 3.

“Today was clearly our day for those three sections,” navigator Dariusz Baśkiewicz remarked. “The first section, we were second overall, we were second again in the second. The third segment didn’t go quite as well and we dropped to seventh overall, but we still have a very large lead over the next truck. We’re verry happy because we moved up in the overall standings.”

As the Bull enjoyed its time in the Classic spotlight, the Raptor came out to play in the Rally. Ford was reeling after a frustrating Stage 2 in which none of their drivers finished top ten due to tire punctures, so they entered Tuesday looking for blood.

Mattias Ekström and Mitch Guthrie, who respectively finished 13th and 23rd on Monday, raced like madmen and quickly caught the leaders. They held the top two spots by halfway. When Ekström started to slow down due to the dust, Guthrie got by him at KM 300 and pulled away. Ekström would end the day in ninth.

While not part of Ford Racing proper, Martin Prokop mounted a furious charge in the closing 100 kilometers. While not enough to catch Guthrie, Prokop’s time was still good for second and just 2:27 off.

Their finish, coupled with Nasser Al-Attiyah finishing 19th in Ultimate, propelled Ford into a 1–2–3–4–5 for the overall. Guthrie leads Prokop by 26 seconds followed by Ekström, Carlos Sainz, and Nani Roma.

On the other hand, Ford client Jourdan Serderidis and Grégoire Munster’s Dakar debut was cut short when they rolled their Raptor. A steering arm had broken off while turning left, and it wasn’t until much later that they returned to the bivouac with a car too damaged to continue.

Puck Klaassen won in Challenger, becoming the fifth woman to claim a Dakar stage win after Jutta Kleinschmidt in 1997, Cristina Gutiérrez in 2021, Sara Price in 2024, and Dania Akeel in 2025. Gutiérrez and Akeel’s victories also came in Challenger.

Stage 3 was a tough one for riders filled with accidents. In RallyGP, Štefan Svitko broke his collarbone after crashing at KM 140. Defending Malle Moto champion Emanuel Gyenes wrecked at KM 316, but Konrad Dąbrowski and Bruno Santos stopped to help and he reached the finish with smashed handlebars and nav tower.

Tobias Ebster was taken out when the front end got loose while turning left 14 kilometers in. As he slid, his Hero landed on his hand and broke the scaphoid.

“I knew straight away something was wrong because I couldn’t lift the bike,” Ebster commented. “I was taken back to the bivouac by medical helicopter. This is not the result we were hoping for, but the next step is to get home, have surgery, and start the recovery process.”

José Ignacio Cornejo nearly joined his Hero teammate when he had a nasty crash at KM 140 while leading, but his bike absorbed most of the impact so the only damage was to his navigation system. After swapping out the tablet, he was back on track and finished.

Shinya Fujiwara flipped at KM 160 when the rear tire hit a rock slab. He recalled that he went to urinate during the refuel, during which he noticed his urine is dark red because the landing had hit him in the abdomen. Fujiwara continued on afterward, but struggled with needing to pee again. Worried he might have a kidney injury, he underwent an echocardiogram upon completing the stage but was cleared.

“For now,” Fujiwara said, “I’m relieved.”

Stage 3 winners

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	228	Mitch Guthrie	Ford Racing	4:04:32
Challenger	24	302	Puck Klaassen	KTM X-Bow powered by G Rally Team	4:28:25
SSV	33	401	Brock Heger*	LOEB FrayMédia Motorsport	4:38:09
Stock	66	502	Rokas Baciuška	Defender Rally	4:59:07
Truck	56	601	Mitchel van den Brink*	Eurol Rally Sport	4:52:59

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	68	Tosha Schareina	Monster Energy Honda HRC	4:26:39
Rally2	10	14	Michael Docherty	BAS World KTM Racing Team	4:39:33

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Classic	902	Tomasz Białkowski*	Kamena Rally Team / DAF de Rooy Classics	97
Mission 1000	1040	Jordi Juvanteny*	KH-7 Ecovergy Team	15

Leaders after Stage 3

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	228	Mitch Guthrie	Ford Racing	11:27:20
Challenger	33	304	Yasir Seaidan	Nasser Racing	12:47:51
SSV	44	401	Brock Heger*	LOEB FrayMédia Motorsport	13:08:47
Stock	69	502	Rokas Baciuška	Defender Rally	14:04:07
Truck	50	601	Mitchel van den Brink*	Eurol Rally Sport	13:22:57

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	1	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	12:12:31
Rally2	10	14	Michael Docherty	BAS World KTM Racing Team	12:35:57

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Classic	728	Maxence Gublin*	Bolides Racing Team	254
Mission 1000	1000 1002 1040	Benjamin Pascual* Yi Guanghui* Jordi Juvanteny*	Segway Racing Segway Racing KH-7 Ecovergy Team	45

Featured image credit: Kamena Rally Team