The 2026 Dakar Rally is only three days in, yet Jan Seinen and his team have been exceptionally busy. In this case, the main problem they face seems to be seatbelts.

Obvious penalties for on-track violations are handled by Benoît Soulas, the Clerk of the Course, such as speeding and not finishing a stage. FIA stewards like Seinen, on the other hand, focus on matters that warrant additional investigation and therefore have the power to hand down more severe punishments like disqualification.

Seinen is the FIA Chief Steward for Dakar, his debut in the role after Dr. Arnas Paliukėnas stepped down. He’s joined in the stewards’ table by Alqassim Hamidaddin from the FIA and Saleh Alem from the Saudi Automobile & Motorcycle Federation. The three can review footage of potential violations via an on-board camera in each car.

Even though the Dakar is barely a quarter of the way through, Seinen’s already had to disqualify Óscar Ral because a spectator had come to help him reattach a loose wheel. His work began well before the Prologue too as Olivier Pernaut was fined €500 because his Can-Am Maverick didn’t have the proper markings to denote that the roll cage had been modified.

The most common infraction that Seinen’s had to address concerns seatbelts. Article 47.1 of the FIA Cross-Country Rally Sporting Reglations state that when the vehicle is in motion, the driver and navigator must have their safety equipment like seatbelts properly fastened. While everyone got the memo, some mistakes were bound to happen such as the co-driver forgetting to fasten them enough or the driver taking off before they could do so in time. Each second with the belt not on counts as ten seconds; for example, the navigator not wearing them right for three seconds yields a 30-second penalty.

Dania Akeel was by far the biggest victim of this, receiving 10 minutes and 50 seconds of penalties for Stage 2. A wheel had come loose, so Sébastien Delaunay went to retrieve it. He tried to squeeze the wheel into the cockpit but it wouldn’t fit, unknowing breaking the camera, so he decided to leave it there. Delaunay re-entered the car and Akeel took off. Despite the damage, the stewards noticed Delaunay’s belt had not been properly fastened for five seconds after Akeel resumed driving. This resulted in a 50-second penalty, plus the ten minutes for the wheel.

2025 SSV champion Brock Heger lost the overall lead which he had following Stage 3 because Max Eddy Jr. was spotted without his belts on tight for 70 seconds during Stage 2.

Eddy explained his timecard had fallen to the floor, so he took off the seatbelt to reach down for it. Later in the stage, they stopped to address a flat tire. Once done, Eddy put the wheel gun on the dashboard before getting in. Heger started driving again Eddy could fully fasten his belts, then Eddy noticed the wheel gun still out and stowed it away.

The belt fiasco added up for 700 seconds, while the wheel gun was another 30 seconds added for 730 seconds of penalties.

Fellow American and classmate Hunter Miller got 290 seconds for Jeremy Gray doing the same on Monday.

Akira Miura’s navigator Jean-Michel Polato cost his Land Cruiser three full minutes with the same error on two different days.

Polato didn’t have the belts on correctly for 19 seconds in Stage 1, then did it again for eight seconds in Stage 2. Those numbers multiplied by ten mean Miura’s received 270 seconds.

Outside of seatbelts, Seinen’s crew added 30 seconds to Fan Gaoxiang in Stage 2 for exceeding the permitted turbo boost of 30 mBars per second. Michal Valtr was also investigated that same day about a mysterious barrel of fluid that his team was spotted with, though they were exonerated upon review.

“Despite the fact that it is unusual that fuel was left in the middle of the desert and that the crew stopped in close proximity to these containers, there is insufficient evidence to establish that the crew committed a breach,” the stewards wrote.

The FIM equivalent is a jury of officials headed by Chief Post Jean-Marc Lepachelet. They made their first verdict on Tuesday when they handed Skyler Howes two minutes for pushing teammate Tosha Schareina’s bike out of the way in order to leave the refuel area in Stage 2.

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