Team Audi Sport was fairly consistent throughout the first half of the Dakar Rally as Carlos Sainz and Mattias Ekström survived the two-day Chrono Stage to comfortably sit 1–2 in the overall ranking. After a rest day on Saturday, however, Sébastien Loeb is priming his foot to kick the door down following a masterful Stage #7.
After winning the Chrono Stage, Loeb overtook Lucas Moraes at KM 311 and stormed off to his third win. Sainz finished fourth, just missing the class podium by forty-four seconds off Loeb’s Prodrive ally Nasser Al-Attiyah. While Sainz’s run is certainly not an effort to scoff at, Loeb’s win whittled the margin between him and Sainz from thirty minutes to just nineteen.
“That was a really good day today that came out well for us,” said Loeb. “It was not easy though as it was difficult with the navigation and a bit complicated with a bit of everything; some canyons, some dunes, tracks and so on but we stayed concentrated on the roadbook. We did make a couple of mistakes here and there with direction but overall we were able to correct all those mistakes very quickly to enable us to push.”
Sainz became Audi’s last hope at securing the Dakar win after Ekström suffered a mechanical issue fifty-one kilometres into the stage. Fellow Audi driver Stéphane Peterhansel, who was already out of contention with a Chrono Stage retirement, stopped to provide assistance but it was not enough to salvage his day. Consequently, Ekström falls from second overall to twentieth.
“After thirty kilometres, Emil (Bergkvist) and I felt that something was loose. We heard this ‘klak klak klak klak’, but very little,” Ekström explained. “Later, we got a slow puncture and the upright was grinding on the rim. Shit happens, life goes on.”
Moraes settled for second after suffering a tyre puncture of his own fifty kilometres before the finish. With Ekström’s troubles, he moves up to third overall albeit an hour behind Loeb.
Audi was not the only team with a dismal Sunday as both M-Sport Ford Rangers retired. Vehicle trouble knocked Nani Roma out at KM 24, while Gareth Woolridge rolled at KM 178. Roma intends to rejoin the race as part of the Dakar Experience, one of ninety-two entries part of this. On the other hand, Claude Fournier does not have a vehicle to rejoin even if he wants to after his Can-Am burst into flames.
RallyGP riders are not permitted to rejoin the race in the Experience if they retire, and Pablo Quintanilla barely managed to avoid this fate when a mechanical problem derailed his day after leading through the first two checkpoints. His Monster Energy Honda team-mate José Ignacio Cornejo notched the win to move up to third, trailing Honda peer Ricky Brabec and Ross Branch. Brabec leads Branch by just one second.
In Rally2, Mathieu Dovèze scored his first stage win as a member of BAS World KTM Racing Team. Tobias Ebster continues to lead in the adjacent Malle Moto, though Emanuel Geynes won and narrowed the gap to just six minutes. 2023 Rally2 vice-champion Paolo Lucci retired following a crash, while Neels Theric‘s bike failed to mark yet another Kove Moto exit alongside Xavier Flick and Mason Klein.
Marcelo Medeiros, who led the early stages in the Quad class, was knocked out of the race when he missed a depression in the ground while riding through dust. Elsewhere in the category (kind of), Jacob Argubright was accidentally given the Quad roadbook despite being a Rally2 rider, which has different speed limits from their four-wheeled counterparts, and he rode conservatively to a nineteenth in his class.
After inheriting the Challenger lead from the disqualified Eryk Goczał, Mitch Guthrie solidified his standing by winning Stage #7. Conversely, in the production-based SSV category, Xavier de Soultrait leapfrogged Yasir Seaidan for the overall by finishing second to João Ferreira.
Mitchel van den Brink finished second in Truck on his twenty-second birthday, losing to overall leader Martin Macík Jr. by just thirty-nine seconds after missing a waypoint.
Stage #7 winners
| Class | Number | Competitor | Team | Time |
| Ultimate (T1) | 203 | Sébastien Loeb* | Bahrain Raid Xtreme | 4:56:39 |
| Stock (T2) | 500 | Akira Miura* | Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body | 8:37:23 |
| Challenger (T3) | 303 | Mitch Guthrie | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 5:35:09 |
| SSV (T4) | 400 | João Ferreira | South Racing Can-Am | 5:49:37 |
| Truck (T5) | 601 | Martin Macík Jr.* | MM Technology | 5:40:52 |
| RallyGP | 11 | José Ignacio Cornejo | Monster Energy Honda Rally Team | 5:18:33 |
| Rally2 | 28 | Mathieu Dovèze | BAS World KTM Racing Team | 5:36:15 |
| Malle Moto | 34 | Jérôme Martiny* | Anquety Motorsport | 6:19:00 |
| Quad | 172 | Alexandre Giroud | Drag’on Rally Team | 6:51:26 |
| Classic | 768 | Carlos Santaolalla* | Factory Tub | 32 points |
| Mission 1000 | 1030 | Jordi Juvanteny* | KH-7 Ecovergy Team | 25 points |
Leaders after Stage #7
| Class | Number | Competitor | Team | Time |
| Ultimate (T1) | 204 | Carlos Sainz | Team Audi Sport | 30:06:42 |
| Stock (T2) | 500 | Akira Miura* | Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body | 50:23:51 |
| Challenger (T3) | 303 | Mitch Guthrie | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 33:29:29 |
| SSV (T4) | 411 | Xavier de Soultrait* | Sébastien Loeb Racing | 35:51:08 |
| Truck (T5) | 601 | Martin Macík Jr.* | MM Technology | 34:40:10 |
| RallyGP | 9 | Ricky Brabec | Monster Energy Honda Rally Team | 32:37:20 |
| Rally2 | 16 | Romain Dumontier | Team Dumontier Racing | 34:36:18 |
| Malle Moto | 96 | Tobias Ebster | Kini Rally Racing Team | 37:16:37 |
| Quad | 174 | Manuel Andújar | 7240 Team | 40:48:00 |
| Classic | 768 | Carlos Santaolalla* | Factory Tub | 346 points |
| Mission 1000 | 1030 | Jordi Juvanteny* | KH7-Ecovergy Team | 85 points |
