The first half of the Dakar Rally came to a close Friday with the sixth stage. With the rest day in Riyadh looming on Saturday, racers couldn’t afford to relax just yet.

This was nowhere more apparent than in the Dakar Classic. Despite not being the main event, its Stage 6 is the longest leg of the race at a staggering 917 kilometers in length with 547 km in Selective Sections. One of the splits was also 19 kilometers long, the longest in Classic history. For comparison, the longest Dakar Rally special this year doesn’t come close to the 500-km mark (470 km for Stage 8) while their Friday had 326 km in specials and 589 km of road sections.

To spice things up for the Classic even more, the stage was a Super Regularity Test. Under SRT conditions, the Tripy navigation system must be in manual mode which disables tracks and sector countdown graphics. This is supposed to make drivers and navigators figure out the course themselves, even if it means having to go off-piste at times. Such a format had also been used for Stage 5.

Karolis Raišys was hardly fazed by the new format, beating Josef Unterholzner by two points to maintain his overall lead.

“Today was a good day,” said Raišys. “917 km, woke up at 4 in the morning and got to it. Now back in civilization, first bivouac on asphalt.”

Tomasz Białkowski, whose DAF Bull became the first truck to win a Classic stage outright on Tuesday, was the only truck driver to enter the dunes and was rewarded by placing third. Of course, it wasn’t entirely smooth sailing as he had a flat on the liaison and overshot the Bull, but the day was still a blast even with “a bit of fear in your eyes”.

Friday also marked the returns of Tomasz Staniszewski and Helen Tait Wright, though their stages didn’t exactly go as hoped. Staniszewski had been sidelined since Sunday when he suffered a driveshaft failure, and couldn’t race again for much of the week as he waited for a replacement to arrive from overseas. The new part arrived on Thursday morning, and a ten-hour installation got him back on track for Friday.

Alas, his comeback was quickly upended when the CV joint broke during the first section, forcing him to start behind the trucks as well. The new driveshaft was reliable until his Porsche 954 took a hard hit that bent a selector rod, leaving him stuck between third and fifth gears and eventually losing fourth. Despite everything, Staniszewski managed to finish the stage in 43rd overall.

Wright had missed Stage 5 for medical reasons but was cleared to return on Friday. Unfortunately, her Land Rover lost power just moments after the start and another truck had to tow it to pick up speed. A Land Rover driving experience employee in Germany drove “Purdey” until Henry Favre arrived to help out.

Favre and Alessandro Iacovelli happily offered their services to get Purdey going again, even if it meant they didn’t finish the stage themselves. However, that was perfectly fine for the Mitsubishi Delica driver and one of the more colorful personalities in the bivouac. As if racing a minivan wasn’t unusual enough, he even attached six Nokia 3310 phones and Woody from Toy Story to his rear bumper as quasi-nerf bars.

“I don’t give a damn about the standings, about the fact that we skipped a few special stages because we were always late so they won’t let us start. Let’s help the competitors, I don’t care,” Favre proclaimed upon reaching the Riyadh bivouac. “I said it right away when the Dakar project started; this is with the van, but last year too, I didn’t give a damn about the standings.

“I’m here to tell stories, have fun, entertain you, and try to get you involved in this motorsport made up entirely of officials and mega-sponsors, where people put on a polo shirt and are convinced they’re the driver of whatever-the-fuck-I-know-about race.

“We’re here to lower the bar a bit, show ourselves off through stupid means, and try to get you involved in the behind-the-scenes of this magical world of motorsports.

“We’re probably last anyway.”

For what it’s worth, Favre is currently 90th of 94 cars with 26,561 points. The “honor” of last place goes to Staniszewski and his 29,251 points due to his extended absence.

On the slightly more popular Dakar Rally side, things were quite inauspicious even for non-competitors. One of De Groot Sport’s service trucks burst into flames on the liaison after a hydraulic pump overheated and melted a cable, after which members of TH-Trucks Team stopped to put it out. Meanwhile, Neels Theric’s camper was t-boned; nobody was injured, though he quipped he probably lost his socks and underwear on the highway.

Theric, who won Rally2 on the last two days, continued his momentum with a third on Friday. Michael Docherty, also out of overall contention because of a broken wheel, officially won by just two-and-a-half minutes over Toni Mulec but the margin would’ve been larger if not for a seven-minute speeding penalty.

Penalties also impacted RallyGP, where Daniel Sanders was busted for going twice the speed limit and handed six minutes. Unlike Docherty, Sanders lost the stage win and fell to third behind Ricky Brabec and Tosha Schareina. Despite the penalty, he still leads Brabec by 45 seconds in the overall.

“We left the bivouac at 4 AM so I’m a little bit tired,” said Brabec. “My eyes are heavy, however the body is good. I’m definitely looking forward to sleeping tonight.”

Sleepy time was a recurring trend for more than a handful of competitors, who experienced trouble that caused them to arrive in Riyadh after nightfall. Dave Klaassen did the last 180 km in the dark, including the final stretch unable to see the tracks when his headlight went out.

Isidre Esteve was among the retirements after hitting a dune at KM 228, hurting his navigator José María Villalobos’ back. Jatin Jain was knocked out by his bike breaking down 30 kilometers into the SS.

Nasser Al-Attiyah led a 1–2 finish for Dacia ahead of Sébastien Loeb, marking the team’s first stage win of the race. Al-Attiyah now has 49 overall stage wins at Dakar, one behind the car record jointly held by Stéphane Peterhansel and Ari Vatanen. Peterhansel, who holds 83 total stage triumphs including his 33 on a bike, finished Friday’s stage third in Stock.

Stage 6 winners

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	299	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Dacia Sandriders	3:38:28
Challenger	22	314	Ignacio Casale*	BBR Motorsport	3:58:57
SSV	25	407	Xavier de Soultrait*	LOEB FrayMédia Motorsport	3:59:53
Stock	73	504	Sara Price	Defender Rally	4:32:10
Truck	41	602	Aleš Loprais*	Loprais Team de Rooy FPT	4:10:50

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	9	Ricky Brabec	Monster Energy Honda HRC	3:41:33
Rally2	7	14	Michael Docherty	BAS World KTM Racing Team	3:51:06

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Classic	703	Karolis Raišys	Ovoko Racing	58
Mission 1000	1000 1001 1005 1006 1040	Benjamin Pascual* Jie Yang* Esther Merino* Fran Pallas* Jordi Juvanteny*	Segway Racing Segway Racing Segway Racing Segway Racing KH-7 Ecovergy Team	10

Leaders after Stage 6

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	299	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Dacia Sandriders	24:18:29
Challenger	25	336	Pau Navarro	Odyssey Academy by BBR	26:46:17
SSV	28	401	Brock Heger*	LOEB FrayMédia Motorsport	26:56:33
Stock	56	502	Rokas Baciuška	Defender Rally	29:12:58
Truck	38	601	Mitchel van den Brink*	Eurol Rally Sport	28:04:08

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	1	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	24:41:00
Rally2	9	85	Preston Campbell	Monster Energy Honda HRC Rally2	26:12:04

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Classic	703	Karolis Raišys*	Ovoko Racing	387
Mission 1000	1040	Jordi Juvanteny*	KH-7 Ecovergy Team	100

Featured image credit: Vandrei Stephani / FOTOP / ASO