It appears we now know the birthday equivalent of coal for Christmas.

Mitchel van den Brink celebrated his 24th birthday on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the presents he got included a broken driveshaft and losing the Dakar Rally overall lead in the Truck category.

Van den Brink had dominated his class in the overall for much of the race. Entering Stage 10, he held a 34-minute advantage over Vaidotas Žala and nearly an hour on Aleš Loprais.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for his lead to unravel. Just 20 kilometers into the stage, the driveshaft broke while he was climbing a dune. After pulling the damaged axle out, he had to wait for someone to arrive with a replacement.

To his dismay, help took far longer than he hoped. Richard de Groot came by, but didn’t have a spare axle with him. Michal Valtr soon showed up and offered his, only for the two crews to realize it’s too small. Mitchel’s dad Martin, who was out of overall contention but continued as a rapid assistance truck, got stuck in the dunes himself and needed Ben de Groot to extract him.

After a painful delay that lasted over 40 minutes, erasing the lead van den Brink had on Žala and Loprais, Darek Łysek finally came to the rescue with the right axle since he and van den Brink both race MM EVO 4s. Van den Brink tried to reclaim lost ground and felt he got into a good rhythm, though that was killed after the second neutralization when he got stuck on a very soft dune. Martin Macík Jr., whose team built his truck, pull him out.

While he couldn’t help his son, the older van den Brink was quite busy anyway. Teruhito Sugawara rolled his HINO onto its side, so Martin helped him out.

“That also cost us some time, but you never know. Maybe we’ll need his help sometime. That’s why we stopped,” said Martin. “It’s a shame for the team and for Mitchel that we had an off day. But we have to keep going. There are still three days left and anything is possible in the Dakar Rally.”

Gert Huzink also rolled on a dune, which he quipped was because “the sun came up so we decided to lie down and sunbathe for an hour, and so did the truck.” Ben de Groot eventually helped get his Renault back on its wheels, though oil pressure issues kept him from going again for a while. Huzink also couldn’t press down on the gas pedal as hard as he liked because of sand jammed underneath, and the truck lost one of its six cylinders as well.

Žala is now the overall Truck leader, though he had his moments on Wednesday too. While going over a particularly steep dune, he nearly crashed into Akira Miura and his stationary Land Cruiser.

The second half of Marathon Number 2 was a bloodbath. Besides the events in Truck, the FIA and FIM overall leads both changed hands because of chaos striking.

Nani Roma and Carlos Sainz held down the top two in FIA going into Wednesday, but the former got lost and finished outside the top ten to drop him to third. Sainz struggled with one waypoint that sent him circles to find, leading to a 15-minute penalty for missing it in the end.

Nasser Al-Attiyah reclaimed the top spot as he led a Dacia 2–3–4 ahead of Sébastien Loeb and Lucas Moraes. On the other hand, their teammate Cristina Gutiérrez rolled seven kilometers in.

Guillaume de Mévius had a roller coaster of a stage as he got stuck in the sand, then the turmoil “suddenly” shuffled him to the front of the order before getting trapped yet again.

By the time the dust settled, the FIA stage win was claimed by Mathieu Serradori in a massive upset. It was the second stage victory for Century Racing since he also won Stage 8 at the 2020 edition.

It wasn’t like he just watched the carnage unfold and the win fell into his lap either. Serradori did the stage without air conditioning because the low voltage alarm went off early on, forcing him to shut every non-vital function in the cockpit off to save power.

Mark Corbett, who founded Century Property Developments and by extension Century Racing, issued the following statement:

What an achievement for the entire Century Racing Team and our long term partners SRT and Mathieu Serradori. A second stage win for a Century car in Dakar, the pinnacle of off-road motorsport in the world. Both stage wins for a Century car have come with Mathieu behind the wheel, first with a CR6 a few years ago and now the new generation CR7 during what we believe is one of the most competitive Dakars to date, beating Dakar legend Nasser Al-Attiyah to the stage win today. A big well done to Julien Hardy who has been at the helm of Century Racing as CEO for a number of years now and his entire team.

I would also like to remember our old friend Colin Matthews who unfortunately is no longer with us to see the results of a team he was a big part of during its infancy. A big thanks also to all the people who have assisted the team over the years. It is really a huge honor to be a part of such a dedicated and amazing team. Well done, guys!!

While the mood was certainly celebratory at Century Racing Factory Team and particularly Serradori Racing Team, the victory came after a brutal day at the office. Brian Baragwanath’s torque sensor broke and had to enter backup mode at KM 100, then he had a vibration 20 kilos later due to the front differential shaking itself loose before he rolled onto his side in a hole. He managed to escape and reached the finish.

Dave Klaassen went from having one of his “best days” on Tuesday to losing his right front fender to a giant rock, while teammate Pim Klaassen struggled with shock failures on the first day (Puck Klaassen offered one of hers) before he lost power on Wednesday to an intercooler leak. Santag Racing had a disastrous day as João Dias and Bruno Martins both retired, leaving Hélder Rodrigues as their last remaining driver.

Maik Willems drove into a rut that pressed his glasses into his nose, resulting in it bleeding “like crazy. We used the first-aid kit we have on board to put some bandages and other things on it.

“That’s how we spent our day. A good old-fashioned Dakar day.”

Challenger leader Pau Navarro’s Taurus broke down before the start of the Selective Section, incurring a 12-minute penalty. Navarro found the throttle position sensor was loose, which his team said shouldn’t have been possible unless it was deliberately disconnected. While Navarro didn’t explicitly claim it was sabotage, he admitted he is “a bit paranoid” and will likely “sleep in the car” next time. Despite the bizarre situation, he remains atop the leaderboard for his class.

His classmate Sergei Remennik’s rear differential broke at KM 162.5. Kevin Rouvière came 40 minutes later to help replace it, which took nearly an hour because the jack broke. The reigning Challenger World Baja Cup champion arrived at the finish in the dark and stuck in fifth gear.

On the FIM side, overall leader Daniel Sanders’ hopes of repeating are in grave danger after he nearly crash-landed on Tosha Schareina at KM 138 and broke his collarbone and sternum. Despite being in pain, he continued and gingerly reached the finish.

“I wouldn’t have finished today if I didn’t want to continue,” Sanders proclaimed. “Mum and Dad didn’t raise no quitter. Unless they drag me out of the race, I’m not stopping.”

With Sanders out of the picture, Adrien Van Beveren and Ricky Brabec led the way for Honda. Brabec leapfrogged Luciano Benavides for the overall lead, with a 56-second margin between them. Honda also continues to lead Rally2 with Preston Campbell, but Toni Mulec has greatly reduced the gap from 17 minutes to 3:23.

Arnau Lledó, Ruy Barbosa, and Guillaume Chollet were among the bike DNFs on Wednesday due to massive crashes. Lledó hurt his leg after getting thrown from his bike, while Barbosa went down 50 km from the finish. Chollet broke his arm and collarbone, the latter when his KTM landed on him after overshooting a dune. Chollet continued an extra 500 meters before falling and getting pinned beneath his bike a second time.

Stage 10 winners

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	214	Mathieu Serradori	Century Racing Factory Team	4:48:27
Challenger	16	310	Paul Spierings	Rebellion Spierings	5:14:55
SSV	20	401	Brock Heger*	LOEB FrayMédia Motorsport	5:18:14
Stock	78	502	Rokas Baciuška	Defender Rally	6:09:01
Truck	53	602	Aleš Loprais*	Loprais Team de Rooy FPT	5:35:54

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	42	Adrien Van Beveren	Monster Energy Honda HRC	4:15:43
Rally2	6	14	Michael Docherty	BAS World KTM Racing Team	4:25:14

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Classic	710	Ondřej Klymčiw*	Klymčiw Racing	28
Mission 1000	1005 1006	Esther Merino* Fran Pallas*	Arctic Leopard Galicia Team Arctic Leopard Galicia Team	20

Leaders after Stage 10

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	299	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Dacia Sandriders	41:39:50
Challenger	28	336	Pau Navarro	Odyssey Academy by BBR	46:27:59
SSV	29	401	Brock Heger*	LOEB FrayMédia Motorsport	46:40:17
Stock	53	502	Rokas Baciuška	Defender Rally	49:25:39
Truck	44	604	Vaidotas Žala*	NØRDIS Team de Rooy FPT	48:33:11

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	9	Ricky Brabec	Monster Energy Honda HRC	41:35:13
Rally2	9	85	Preston Campbell	Monster Energy Honda HRC Rally2	44:03:28

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Classic	703	Karolis Raišys*	Ovoko Racing	553
Mission 1000	1040	Jordi Juvanteny*	KH-7 Ecovergy Team	182

Featured image credit: Julien Delfosse / DPPI / ASO