2026 Dakar Rally: Marathon rules and mechanical issues define Stage 9

Marathon rules stipulate drivers and riders cannot rely on their teams to help with any trouble. Unfortunately for many, the second marathon of the Dakar Rally was also when parts on their vehicles started to give way.

“It was a strange stage today,” said Monster Energy Honda HRC manager Ruben Faria. “This was supposed to have been an easy one, but in the end, it was more difficult than we expected.”

Frontrunners Henk Lategan and Sébastien Loeb were victims of power steering failures. The latter’s went out 222 kilometers in, spoiling a top-five run that sank him to 19th for the day. His teammate Nasser Al-Attiyah also lost the overall lead after struggling with navigation.

Lategan entered Stage 9 ranked third overall and just six minutes back of Al-Attiyah before suffering a flat and the power steering died 40 km before the pit area. While he got it fixed in 13 minutes, another puncture slowed him down even more and his windshield was smashed by a branch. He finished 16th and fell to fourth in the overall.

“We had to stop to kick the windscreen out and then run the rest of the day with goggles,” Lategan explained. “It was frustrating but we’ll try to have a cleaner day tomorrow.”

Results were mixed at Ford. Nani Roma and Carlos Sainz had fairly quiet days, but the leaders’ issues propelled them into the top two overall. Roma leads Sainz by 57 seconds with Al-Attiyah 1:10 back.

On the other hand, Mattias Ekström and Mitch Guthrie had trouble with navigating and flat tires, sinking both of them to 28th and 83rd among all cars for the day. Ekström still sits top five overall with ten mintues on Loeb.

Century Racing endured a tough day, including what team manager Julien Hardy called “catastrophic” for Mathieu Serradori as vehicle issues dropped him far off the pace. Brian Baragwanath lost his main fuel pump that left him on the backup for the second leg of the marathon on Wednesday. Laia Sanz had an electrical failure moments before the finish after a wire came loose under the dashboard.

The start of Alexandre Pinto’s W2RC SSV title defense ended with a sour note as he was eliminated by a suspension failure.

Mitchel van den Brink’s steering damper broke, but it only cost three minutes and his father Martin—also a competitor so he wasn’t beholden to the no-crew rule—gave him a replacement in the bivouac. Darek Łysek, also racing an MM EVO 4, broke his windscreen when he hit a tree.

Even non-racers had issues. While Sara Price recorded a runner-up finish in Stock, her camper got stuck until Henry Favre’s minivan showed up to save the day. Although he’s still racing in the Dakar Classic, Favre has been frank about being in Saudi Arabia more for the memories and fun stories. As such, while he was classified as a DNF for Stage 9, his priority was on helping those like Price and his fellow competitors.

If it wasn’t mechanical in nature, navigation was the worry. Riders, who were on a different route from their automotive counterparts, got lost in the canyons through the first checkpoint including overall leaders Daniel Sanders and Luciano Benavides. This in turn dragged rivals Ricky Brabec and Tosha Schareina in the wrong direction as they rode together.

Schareina still recovered to win the stage, capitalizing on whatever time bonuses he could get. Fortunately for him, the last run was “completely straight and so wide open. It’s difficult to fight with the guys when it’s completely straight. In the dunes, I did my best but all the riders were riding together until the end.”

His stage win and Benavides’ seventh moved him past for second. Sanders still leads by 6:24.

Aleš Loprais rebounded from his crash with Martin Macík Jr. on Monday to win Truck by 1:53 on Vaidotas Žala. Conversely, Macík’s hopes of a three-peat are on the ropes after problems with his truck related to his Stage 8 accident caused him to finish a dismal 33rd in class and over three hours back.

On the Dakar Classic side, Tomasz Białkowski just missed out on a third stage podium by two points behind Stage 8 winner Ondřej Klymčiw. The DAF Bull remains eight points outside the overall top ten, with the last spot currently held by Shammie Baridwan.

In Mission 1000, all six riders earned 20 points while Jordi Juvanteny got just 15. He also beat the reference time of one hour and 17 minutes, but his time of 1:11:56 was short of the 10% margin required for the five extra points given out for Sport Mode times.

Stage 9 winners

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	205	Eryk Goczał	Energylandia Rally Team	3:46:42
Challenger	13	310	Paul Spierings	Rebellion Spierings	4:08:57
SSV	32	402	Francisco López Contardo	Can-Am Factory Team	4:23:43
Stock	52	502	Rokas Baciuška	Defender Rally	4:36:24
Truck	34	602	Aleš Loprais*	Loprais Team de Rooy FPT	4:26:43

* – Not competing for World Rally-Raid Championship

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	68	Tosha Schareina	Monster Energy Honda HRC	3:45:42
Rally2	3	14	Michael Docherty	BAS World KTM Racing Team	3:50:32

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Classic	728	Maxence Gublin*	Bolides Racing Team	22
Mission 1000	1000 1001 1002 1004 1005 1006	Benjamin Pascual* Jie Yang* Yi Guanghui* Miguel Puertas* Esther Merino* Fran Pallas*	Segway Racing Segway Racing Segway Racing Arctic Leopard Galicia Team Arctic Leopard Galicia Team Arctic Leopard Galicia Team	20

Leaders after Stage 9

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	227	Nani Roma	Ford Racing	36:44:01
Challenger	26	336	Pau Navarro	Odyssey Academy by BBR	40:47:03
SSV	31	401	Brock Heger*	LOEB FrayMédia Motorsport	41:22:03
Stock	48	502	Rokas Baciuška	Defender Rally	43:16:38
Truck	39	601	Mitchel van den Brink*	Eurol Rally Sport	42:20:28