The Dakar Rally was a battle between Dacia and Ford while Toyota struggled. The BP Ultimate Rally-Raid Portugal was Dacia vs. Toyota whereas Ford was left hanging. Take a guess as to who’s leading the World Rally-Raid Championship after two rounds.

Sébastien Loeb, who’s won in Portugal twice with the World Rally Championship, was on defense for much of the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid as he faced down an army of Hiluxes. Toyota was coming off a disappointing Dakar, and both the flagship TGR and regional TGRSA were keen on rebounding.

João Ferreira drew first blood for Toyota in his home race by winning the first stage. Although he contributed to four Hilux stage wins, none of them could get past Loeb after the latter won Stage 2.

Ferreira lost too much time as the first car on the road for the second stage and finished sixth, then struggled during the Spanish leg the next day. A Stage 4 win and third on the last stage could only get him a third overall.

Loeb had just that one stage win, but teammate and former Toyota driver Lucas Moraes pitched in two. Nasser Al-Attiyah, normally Dacia’s ace and the points leader entering Portugal, had an uncharacteristically poor showing that reached its nadir when water messed up the batteries and caused the electronics to submit false signals. Al-Attiyah salvaged a runner-up finish on the last day.

After going three years without a W2RC win, Loeb has now won two of the last three races after winning the 2025 season-ending Rallye du Maroc.

“We had a good race. It was not easy, very difficult on these types of roads, very technical. With these Ultimate category cars, it’s really a challenge,” said Loeb. “But the feeling was really good, the Dacia Sandrider was working well all the rally, we score a lot of points and that’s the best we could expect. Another win for the team and the first one for us of the season. It’s looking good, the feeling with the car was great so I’m really happy.

“Today was a bit more in the stages that I remember from the past. For sure the memory was small because it’s a long time ago, but it’s an area I like, I have some good memories from Portugal, and to win again in Portugal is nice. I really enjoyed the rally, the stages are interesting, pushing like in WRC so it was really fun to drive all the week. It’s also the kind of terrain that I enjoy but we see the rivals are really strong, the young drivers are really fast on these kinds of stages.

“For sure, I’m really happy to win this one an we take the lead of the championship. After the big score of Nasser on the Dakar, it’s not bad after the second race to be in the fight. Everything was perfect for me this week. Hopefully we can continue like this in the future.”

Quintero was runner-up to cap off an interesting week that began with him arriving last minute because his flight was delayed. Outside of Loeb’s win and Moraes in fourth, the entire top 12 was Hiluxes. His teammate Akira Miura just missed out on that company as he was 14th in his first race for TGR, while Henk Lategan retired after repeatedly crashing into trees and gradually taking damage until his Hilux couldn’t go on.

“I still have lots to learn but I am happy to be living my dream with this team,” said Miura. He had done sporadic races in a Hilux since 2024, but was mainly in the Stock category before moving up to TGR full time after Dakar.

After fighting with Dacia to the bitter end in Dakar, Ford had a disastrous time in Portugal. Both factory drivers—Mattias Ekström and Carlos Sainz—as well as privateers Denis Krotov, Mark Mustermann, and Martin Prokop withdrew due to engine failures caused by water getting inside. Prokop’s Raptor was also still out of shape from his crash at Dakar, and the damage wasn’t identified until the engine giving way allowed for his team to do a teardown.

One major factor in the debacle is the Raptor’s intake being located on the front grille, where water could easily enter the vehicle due to how deep the river crossings were. For comparison, the Hilux and Sandrider have snorkels along their A-posts. While this setup partially obscures the far left side of the windshield, a Dacia developer quipped that it is “worth to take that compromise to not break your engine”.

Kees Koolen, driving for Ford driver Romain Dumas’ team, ended up being the only Raptor to make it home mostly in one piece.

Century Racing was left disappointed as well. Mathieu Serradori crashed into a tree in Stage 3 that sank him to the bottom of the order, but at least he reached the finish. Laia Sanz’s EBRO, a rebadged CR7, drifted off course on the first day and into a pole.

Steven Rotsaert was disqualified for refueling at an off-limits gas station. He had been struggling with fuel pressure issues that necessitated topping off in order to complete the stage.

Results

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver	Navigator	Team	Class	Total Time	Margin
1	1	219	Sébastien Loeb	Édouard Boulanger	Dacia Sandriders	T1+	10:58:52	Leader
2	2	203	Seth Quintero	Andrew Short	Toyota Gazoo Racing	T1+	11:01:38	+ 2:46
3	3	240	João Ferreira	Filipe Palmeiro	Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa	T1+	11:02:29	+ 3:37
4	4	223	Lucas Moraes	Dennis Zenz	Dacia Sandriders	T1+	11:03:28	+ 4:#6
5	5	218	Guy Botterill	Oriol Mena	Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa	T1+	11:04:19	+ 5:27
6	6	201	Yazeed Al-Rajhi	Timo Gottschalk	Overdrive Racing	T1+	11:10:47	+ 1:55
7	7	205	Eryk Goczał	Szymon Gospodarczyk	Energylandia Rally Team	T1+	11:21:06	+ 22:14
8	8	235	Francisco Barreto*	Paulo Fiúza	SVR	T1+	11:30:21	+ 31:29
9	10	206	Marek Goczał	Maciej Marton	Energylandia Rally Team	T1+	11:36:48	+ 37:56
10	12	220	Marcos Baumgart	Kleber Cincea	SVR	T1+	11:39:01	+ 40:09
11	13	234	Lucio Álvarez	Bernardo Graue	SVR	T1+	11:39:46	+ 40:54
12	20	236	Cristian Baumgart*	Luis Eckel	SVR	T1+	12:11:59	+ 1:13:07
13	23	231	Kees Koolen	Wouter Rosegaar	RD Limited	T1+	12:28:39	+ 1:29:47
14	26	204	Akira Miura	Armand Monleón	Toyota Gazoo Racing	T1+	12:47:10	+ 1:48:18
15	32	210	Hernán Garcés	Juan Latrach	Overdrive Racing	T1+	13:47:10	+ 2:48:18
16	34	241	Sam Heyvaert*	Dave Berghmans	Dave Berghmans	T1.1	16:52:08	+ 5:53:16
17	36	214	Laia Sanz	Maurizio Gerini	EBRO Audax Motorsport	T1+	23:20:58	+ 12:22:06
18	38	299	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Fabian Lurquin	Dacia Sandriders	T1+	29:17:55	+ 18:19:03
19	39	238	Marcelo Gastaldi*	Carlos Sachs	SVR	T1+	29:52:51	+ 18:53:59
20	42	230	Miroslav Zapletal	Marek Sýkora	Offroadsport	T1+	31:03:00	+ 20:04:08
21	44	211	Mathieu Serradori	Loïc Minaudier	Century Racing Factory Team	T1+	32:21:31	+ 21:22:39
DNF	DNF	202	Henk Lategan	Brett Cummings	Toyota Gazoo Racing	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	213	Saood Variawa	François Cazalet	Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	217	Denis Krotov	Konstantin Zhiltsov	M-Sport Rally-Raid Team	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	221	Martin Prokop	Viktor Chytka	ORLEN Jipocar Team	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	225	Carlos Sainz	Daniel Oliveras	Ford Racing	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	226	Mattias Ekström	Emil Bergkvist	Ford Racing	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	232	Mark Mustermann	Michael Zajc	MM Rallye	T1+	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	237	Luis Recuenco*	Daniel Camara	GPR Sport	T1+	DNF	N/A
DSQ	DSQ	239	Steven Rotsaert*	Emile Dewitte	DaklaPack Rallysport	T1+	DSQ	N/A

Stage winners

Stage	Overall	Driver	Total Time
Stage 1	1	João Ferreira	1:33:58
Stage 2	1	Sébastien Loeb	2:47:47
Stage 3	1	Lucas Moraes	2:46:25
Stage 4	1	João Ferreira	2:44:37
Stage 5	1	Lucas Moraes	1:03:07

Featured image credit: Edoardo Bauer / Edophoto / DPPI / ASO