In 2025, Benjamin Melot lost the Dakar Rally’s Original by Motul on the final day when he missed a checkpoint that was supposedly not validated even though he insisted he had done so. A year later, he earned his redemption.

Defending winner Emanuel Gyenes was keen on repeating, and certainly looked the part as he dominated the first two stages of the rally. However, a crash in Stage 3 caused his vision to start going blurry and greatly affected his depth perception. While a CT scan cleared him of internal head injuries, doctors urged him to bow out but he opted to continue. After each stage, he would do routine checkups with race medics, receiving the same advice only to decide to keep going.

Gyenes managed to reach the finish in one piece and without further incident, though the lingering effects meant he had to go at a slower pace. As a result, he settled for fourth in Malle Moto. Despite the circumstances, he was glad to pull it off in the end. Bruno Santos and Konrad Dąbrowski, who helped Gyenes after his Stage 3 crash, commended him on his perseverance: Dąbrowski called him a “very tough guy”, while Santos remarked he had “never seen someone so dazed stay so focused on pushing forward”.

“It was hard to convince the doctors to let me continue,” Gyenes recalled. “The doctors recommended that I withdraw from the rally, but I wanted to continue.

“Every day was a battle with headaches, hand pain, etc. On the day of the break in Riyadh, I did another CT scan and received the same verdict: I needed rest to recover, and it would be better to retire.

“I started the second week not knowing if I would be able to start the special stage because my vision problems were not improving. However, I took each day kilometer by kilometer even though my vision didn’t improve. I went ten stages seeing double and not able to see the the differences in depth.

“I’m glad I did not give up and managed to reach the Dakar finish line for the 14th time.”

With Gyenes out of the picture, the Malle Moto win instead became a duel between Melot and Josep Pedró. Pedró, who previously raced with a team, opted to go solo for 2026 and impressed with eight stage wins to Melot’s three. One of his wins saw him and Melot finish top five among all Rally2 riders as they respectively placed fourth and fifth, just a minute apart from each other.

Stage 10 marked the turning point when Pedró’s mousse broke after over a week of wear and tear. Melot won the stage by 12 minutes on Pedró, who then got another six minutes added for speeding. This cycled the overall lead to Melot, who continued to hold it as the two split the final long stages.

Pedró won the last stage but would’ve needed to make up 19 and a half minutes to pass Melot, which he couldn’t in such a short leg. Their times were also good for top 20 in Rally2.

“I finally earned my trophy,” said Melot.

Jérôme Martiny also consistently ran in the top three alongside those two, but he fell out of contention due to mechanical issues. Still, he managed to finish on the podium.

“Everything went pretty much as it was supposed to,” Martiny said. “The goal was to reach the finish and not get hurt or fall.”

After his 2025 race was marred by a crash, Simon Marčič was surely relieved to reach the finish without the same fate. On the other hand, 2026 still saw trouble when he crashed and hurt tore his knee’s ligaments. The mousse of his rear wheel also blew in Stage 5 and he sliced his finger while trying to get it fixed; a failed attempt to ride on the rims left him having to pick between retiring or getting a replacement and absorb a penalty, naturally taking the latter.

These factors combined to force him to miss the first marathon before rejoining the race. Of course, he’s just glad to complete the rally as the final Malle Moto rider.

Maxi Schek was the top ObM rookie in sixth. Other newcomers to reach the finish include Antoine Detourbet, Mathieu Jauffraud, Ludwig Messager, and Romain Bouzigon. Neil Hawker was 13th in his first Dakar since 2021.

While Malle Moto is already tough enough as it forbids assistance from teams, Tiziano Internó stepped it up a notch with his “Ultra Dakar” effort in which his bike carried two large travel bags containing tools, spare parts, and sleeping bag. The added weight certainly didn’t make things easy, but he mostly stayed out of trouble. In fact, the only real mechanical issue encountered was when Bradley Cox’s bike broke down in Stage 7 and he towed him to the finish.

Results

Finish	Overall	Rally2	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time	Margin
1	18	8	39	Benjamin Melot	Esprit KTM	55:48:52	Leader
2	19	9	44	Josep Pedró	Pedregà Team	56:03:24	+ 14:32
3	22	12	25	Jérôme Martiny	Jérôme Martiny	57:13:35	+ 1:24:43
4	25	15	34	Emanuel Gyenes	Autonet Motorcycle Team	59:20:47	+ 3:31:55
5	28	18	99	Javi Vega	Pont Grup	60:16:13	+ 4:27:21
6	31	21	101	Maxi Schek #	Maxi Schek Motorsport	60:52:43	+ 5:03:51
7	36	25	36	David Pabiška	SP Moto Bohemia	62:29:00	+ 6:40:08
8	37	26	93	Tiziano Internó	Rally POV	63:29:19	+ 7:40:27
9	38	27	55	Florian Bancilhon #	Florian Bancilhon	63:38:01	+ 7:49:09
10	39	28	124	Andrea Gava	Kove Italia	63:47:37	+ 7:58:45
11	50	39	53	Vasilis Boudros	DNA Air Filters Racing Team / Enduro Greece Rally Team	68:43:15	+ 12:54
12	52	41	137	Mathieu Troquier	22 Tout Terrain	69:04:57	+ 13:16:05
13	57	46	63	Neil Hawker	Team Ikuzawa	70:22:00	+ 14:33:08
14	58	47	71	Cesare Zacchetti	Kove Italia	71:48:33	+ 15:59:41
15	62	51	52	Antoine Detourbet #	Antoine Detourbet	74:01:11	+ 18:12:19
16	64	53	60	Matthieu Jauffraud #	Jauffraud Racing Team	74:35:07	+ 18:46:15
17	66	55	51	Rachid Al-Lal Lahadid	Melilla Ciudad del Deporte	76:04:21	+ 20:15:29
18	71	60	111	Ludwig Messager #	LB Racing	79:03:23	+ 23:14:31
19	74	63	129	Borja Pérez #	Melilla Ciudad del Deporte	79:49:51	+ 24:00:59
20	76	65	87	Thierry Bethys	TB Racing	80:51:22	+ 25:02:30
21	77	66	139	Romain Bouzigon #	Esprit	81:59:20	+ 26:10:28
22	80	69	105	Benjamin Pousset #	Live in a Rear Wheel	85:15:16	+ 29:26:24
23	84	73	119	Fernando Domínguez	Diputación de Cuenca	107:29:55	+ 51:41:03
24	86	75	24	Abdulhalim Al-Mogeera	Desert Storm	125:09:22	+ 69:20:30
25	90	79	90	Simon Marčič	Team Marčič	206:35:21	+ 150:46:29
DNF	DNF	DNF	50	James Hillier	Kove Official Customer Support	DNF	N/A

Stage winners

Stage	Overall	Rally2	Rider	Total Time
Prologue	17	6	Emanuel Gyenes	12:23.4
Stage 1	22	9	Emanuel Gyenes	3:41:33
Stage 2	24	11	Emanuel Gyenes	4:41:52
Stage 3	26	14	Josep Pedró	5:20:12
Stage 4	22	11	Josep Pedró	5:23:51
Stage 5	20	11	Josep Pedró	4:40:24
Stage 6	19	8	Benjamin Melot	4:11:41
Stage 7	19	9	Josep Pedró	4:28:57
Stage 8	23	13	Josep Pedró	5:06:22
Stage 9	11	4	Josep Pedró	4:04:09
Stage 10	15	7	Benjamin Melot	4:40:56
Stage 11	17	6	Josep Pedró	3:28:23
Stage 12	20	9	Benjamin Melot	3:58:43
Stage 13	18	8	Josep Pedró	55:17

Featured image credit: Julien Delfosse / DPPI / ASO