Stage 8 of the Dakar Rally was a masterclass for the Super Benavides Brothers as Kevin and Luciano led the bikes, separated by just 31 seconds.
Jordi Juvanteny’s KH-7 Ecovergy hydrogen truck is already leading the Dakar Rally’s Mission 1000, but they earned another five bonus points after winning the Fan Boost fan vote by a wide margin with over double the votes of second-placed Tacita’s electric bike.
Carlos Sainz’s Dakar Rally advantage over Sébastien Loeb was cut by ten minutes as the latter claimed Stage 7, while his Audi team-mate Mattias Ekström was set back by a mechanical failure.
After making her name in a Challenger/T3, Dania Akeel will graduate to the Ultimate class and race a Toyota Hilux from Overdrive Racing in 2025.
Despite leading the Challenger category overall with five stage wins in seven days, Eryk Goczał and his uncle Michał have been disqualified from the Dakar Rally for a non-compliant clutch.
Alex Scheuerell, technical director for Polaris Factory Racing, spoke with The Checkered Flag as his team’s Polaris RZR Pro R Factory takes on the Dakar Rally with Xavier de Soultrait and Florent Vayssade for Sébastien Loeb Racing.
Although their Dakar Rally hopes are gone, 47 racers headlined by Seth Quintero and Krzysztof Hołowczyc will be allowed to run the second half of the race even if they won’t be classified as a finisher.
Challenger leader Eryk Goczał called the Chrono Stage the “most beautiful hell” he’s ever visited. It certainly was hell for Nasser Al-Attiyah, whose hopes of a 3rd straight Dakar Rally win are all but gone.
Had intervention happened sooner or the war in Gaza not escalated to begin with, Rodrigo Varela would be racing his original Maverick, stuck on a redirected ship after a Houthi attack, in the Dakar Rally right now.
Yazeed Al-Rajhi began the Dakar Rally’s Chrono Stage as the overall leader. He left it with an overturned Toyota Hilux wondering what went wrong.
While Sébastien Loeb elected to hold back during Stage 5 of the Dakar Rally to avoid starting up front for the Chrono Stage, Prodrive team-mate Nasser Al-Attiyah led the way to reignite his threepeat quest.
“Papa Butch” Dean, a 2022 Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame inductee who helped kickstart the desert racing careers of drivers like Rob MacCachren and BJ Baldwin, died Friday.
José Ignacio Cornejo and Ricky Brabec led a masterful Honda showing in Stage 4 of the Dakar Rally, finishing 1–2 as Cornejo took the overall bike lead.
Stage 3 of the Dakar Rally was a Hilux masterclass as Lucas Moraes scored the inaugural stage win for the Toyota GR DKR Hilux EVO T1U while Yazeed Al-Rajhi’s Hilux Overdrive took over the overall lead.
Jackie Loomans, an entrepreneur who raced the Dakar Rally from 1987 into the 2000s as well African rallies like the Africa Eco Race, died Sunday morning. He was 71 years old.
Stéphane Peterhansel isn’t called “Mr. Dakar” for nothing as he is now tied with Ari Vatanen for the most car stage wins in Dakar Rally history with 50 after claiming Stage 2.
The 2024 Dakar Rally is already shaping up to be slugfest as a challenging Prologue was followed by a disastrous opening stage for many contenders and near-tragedy.
