It’s been a rough stretch for Benediktas Vanagas at the Dakar Rally. For the fourth time in five years, his race ended before the halfway mark after crashing on Thursday.

Vanagas was 16 kilometers from the end of Stage 5’s special when he hit an unmarked watering hole at 160 km/h, launching his Hilux into another. He and Aisvydas Paliukėnas weren’t injured, but the fuel cell and rear wheel well were shredded by the wheel coming off.

The FIA quickly ruled the damage was too much to continue, continuing a frustrating stretch for the Lithuanian. After only retiring once in his first nine tries, his only finish since 2022 was an eighth in 2024.

The unmarked hole also claimed Jesús Calleja, who overcooked the ensuing jump and impacted the nose. This sent his Santana into a flip and ended the marque’s debut with a DNF. Calleja suffered a hairline fracture in his shoulder but was otherwise not seriously injured, while an investigation by Century Racing found the Santana’s suspension was still mostly intact save for two broken rear dampers.

Race director David Castera was on the scene for Calleja’s accident and also expressed surprise about it not being labeled on the roadbook.

“We are all upset, that the race come to such an abrupt end when they were very cautious throughout,” Century Racing manager Julien Hardy said. Century is a technical partner of Santana, whose T1+ is based on the CR7. “What is also very upsetting is that [Calleja] finished 31st yesterday within the 115% margin to the winner and got put back into 80th position this morning behind trucks and slow cars again. The system is properly flawed.”

The stage wasn’t any easier for the trucks either, many of whom were reeling at the finish after getting lost together.

Stage 2 Truck winner Gert Huzink lost front-wheel drive in Stage 4, which caused the rear tires—now taking in more power—to go flat three times. He had to wait 20 minutes for his cousin Kay to come with the third tire, costing him an hour. Gert and his crew tried to fix the issue by themselves since marathon rules meant they didn’t have their team accompanying them, but weren’t able to figure it out.

As a result, he started Stage 5 with just rear-wheel drive. It didn’t go well.

“We got stuck on the first ascent, and it took too long to get out,” he explained. “When everyone had passed us, I made the call to withdraw from the stage. The risk of getting stuck again and not being able to get back to the bivouac was too high.”

While his DNF meant he was out of the overall, he will continue the race as a support truck for Kay, who finished second for the stage.

Martin Šoltys‘ turbo failed with three kilometers until the finish. He and his crew swapped it out for a replacement before continuing, only for the engine to go out moments later. This time, the issue was unsolvable on their own so they had to be towed to the bivouac.

Since Stages 4 and 5 work together as marathon stages, those who retired from the former did not start the latter. This included those like Martin Koloc, who bowed out on Wednesday with a gearbox issue, and Tomasz Staniszewski, who’s been out since Stage 1 because he needed to wait for a replacement gearbox to come. Helen Tait Wright had to miss Thursday’s stage for medical reasons, but hopes to be back after a day of rest.

At the front, Mitch Guthrie rebounded from his tough Wednesday to lead a Ford 1–2–3 ahead of Nani Roma and Martin Prokop. Roma had set the fastest time but received 70 seconds in speeding penalties that relegated him to second.

Honda lost the FIM stage and overall leads to KTM as Luciano Benavides and Daniel Sanders respectively claimed both.

Stage 5 winners

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	228	Mitch Guthrie	Ford Racing	3:54:46
Challenger	29	338	Lucas Del Rio	BBR Motorsport	4:18:09
SSV	30	402	Francisco López Contardo	Can-Am Factory Team	4:18:13
Stock	62	502	Rokas Baciuška	Defender Rally	4:29:32
Truck	64	600	Martin Macík Jr.*	MM Technology	4:30:26

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	77	Luciano Benavides	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	4:05:16
Rally2	6	66	Neels Theric	Kove Factory Racing	4:14:33

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Classic	703	Karolis Raišys*	Ovoko Racing	43
Mission 1000	1006 1040	Fran Pallas* Jordi Juvanteny*	Arctic Leopard Galicia Team KH-7 Ecovergy Team	30

Leaders after Stage 5

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	202	Henk Lategan	Toyota Gazoo Racing	20:36:44
Challenger	27	336	Pau Navarro	Odyssey Academy by BBR	22:39:37
SSV	30	401	Brock Heger*	LOEB FrayMédia Motorsport	22:51:24
Stock	54	502	Rokas Baciuška	Defender Rally	24:38:09
Truck	39	600	Martin Macík Jr.*	MM Technology	23:42:03

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	1	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	20:58:10
Rally2	9	85	Preston Campbell	Monster Energy Honda HRC Rally2	22:14:13

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Classic	703	Karolis Raišys*	Ovoko Racing	329
Mission 1000	1040	Jordi Juvanteny*	KH-7 Ecovergy Team	90

Featured image credit: Benediktas Vanagas