The Dakar Rally is shaping up to be a duel of the manufacturers on both the FIM and FIA sides. Honda and KTM are duking it out for the bike crown, while the cars overall figures to come down to Ford or Dacia.

For evidence of how close the bike battle is, Honda won Stage 11 in both RallyGP and Rally2. However, KTM riders ended Thursday by taking the overall leads for those categories.

Adrien Van Beveren of Honda was the first bike on course after winning Stage 10, riding with teammates Ricky Brabec and Skyler Howes. Brabec had been leading the overall with 56 seconds on Luciano Benavides going into Thursday, but fell behind and finished sixth.

Howes cruised to the stage win with Van Beveren 21 seconds back, the latter aided by nearly five and a half minutes in starter bonuses. Benavides was fourth to take the overall lead from Brabec, though the margin between them is even closer now at 23 seconds.

“Today was extremely fast, and in some sections the terrain was quite tricky, so I focused on riding smart and avoiding unnecessary risks,” said Benavides. “It wasn’t always safe to push flat out, but I gave everything I could within my limits. I didn’t follow any particular strategy, just focused on doing my own race and controlling what I can control.

“The overall standings are still very tight and nothing will be decided until the final day, so the plan is to push hard tomorrow and give 100 percent until the very end, regardless of what anyone else does.”

It’s a similar story on the Rally2 side. While Martim Ventura beat Toni Mulec by 2:22, class overall leader Preston Campbell had an off day. Campbell held a 3:23 lead over Mulec going into Thursday, but said he “didn’t feel like myself out there today” as he finished fourth.

Mulec now has a 2:27 advantage with two days to go.

In FIA, Toyota’s hopes of winning were dashed when Henk Lategan—who was second overall going into Stage 11—had a wheel bearing issue strike at KM 140. He tried to continue on three wheels, which was a bust so he had to wait for the service truck to come with a spare. This in turn sank him to 23rd and out of contention.

“It is really frustrating. This year, it feels like everything that Dakar could throw at us has happened,” Lategan stated. “This rally tried hard to get us down and we lost four hours on this stage, so it has finally succeeded. Every day we would get ourselves back up into a decent position. We have been pushing for so many days and trying so hard.”

Mattias Ekström led a podium sweep for Ford ahead of Romain Dumas and Carlos Sainz for the day. While Dumas is too far back in the overall, Sainz is now fifth and Ekström fourth. Their teammate Nani Roma sits second, sandwiched between Dacia’s Nasser Al-Attiyah and Sébastien Loeb with an 8:40 gap between him and the leader. Loeb trails Roma by ten minutes.

Stage 10 winner Mathieu Serradori finished 20th. It was an expected result given the team’s equipment, Serradori having to start first, and his more conservative driving style.

“Mathieu likes to take care of his car too much,” Century manager Julien Hardy explained. “There were a lot of bushes and small trees and he’s trying too hard to go around it. Factory drivers don’t have that affinity with their bodywork, knowing that the parts supply is almost limitless.”

Shammie Baridwan was the only Dakar Classic driver to set a score below 30 on Thursday, becoming the first Indonesian driver to record a Dakar stage victory of any kind. He and teammate Julian Johan are the third and fourth Indonesians to compete in a Dakar after Tinton Soeprapto and Kasih Hanggoro did the Rally in 1990 and 2010–2011, respectively.

The stage win moved Baridwan from eighth into the top five overall while Johan is 13 points back in sixth.

“Thank God. We’re really, really tired,” Baridwan quipped.

Stage 11 winners

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	226	Mattias Ekström	Ford Racing	2:47:22
Challenger	37	300	Nicolás Cavigliasso	Vertical Motor Sport Team	3:17:27
SSV	68	401	Brock Heger*	LOEB FrayMédia Motorsport	3:30:11
Stock	62	502	Rokas Baciuška	Defender Rally	3:28:30
Truck	47	602	Aleš Loprais*	Loprais Team de Rooy FPT	3:19:59

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	10	Skyler Howes	Monster Energy Honda HRC	3:09:02
Rally2	7	84	Martim Ventura	Monster Energy Honda HRC Rally2	3:16:13

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Classic	766	Shammie Baridwan*	Compagnie Saharienne	22
Mission 1000	1002 1004 1005 1006 1040	Yi Guanghui* Miguel Puertas* Esther Merino* Fran Pallas* Jordi Juvanteny*	Segway Racing Arctic Leopard Galicia Team Arctic Leopard Galicia Team Arctic Leopard Galicia Team KH-7 Ecovergy Team	20

Leaders after Stage 11

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	299	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Dacia Sandriders	44:39:59
Challenger	28	336	Pau Navarro	Odyssey Academy by BBR	49:52:46
SSV	30	401	Brock Heger*	LOEB FrayMédia Motorsport	50:10:28
Stock	53	502	Rokas Baciuška	Defender Rally	52:54:09
Truck	43	604	Vaidotas Žala*	NØRDIS Team de Rooy FPT	51:55:41

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	77	Luciano Benavides	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	44:48:48
Rally2	9	16	Toni Mulec	BAS World KTM Racing Team	47:25:26

Other

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Points
Classic	703	Karolis Raišys*	Ovoko Racing	588
Mission 1000	1040	Jordi Juvanteny*	KH-7 Ecovergy Team	202

Featured image credit: Antonin Vincent / DPPI / ASO