HAIL, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Mitch Guthrie became the first driver to win the second stage of the Dakar Rally after Nani Roma was penalized Thursday for speeding in the Saudi desert.
Guthrie won his first major stage on Tuesday, as the American repeated in the second half of the 371-kilometre marathon from AlUla East to Khail.
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Roma thought he had won his 14th career car stage win after 4 hours and 4 seconds, one more than he had achieved on the motorcycle stage, but a 70-second penalty meant he lost the stage by 66 seconds. Martin Prokop’s third place gave Ford a sweep of the podium.
Henk Lategan’s Toyota held the overall lead, nearly 13 minutes behind the winner, but Nasser Al-Attiyah’s Dacia and Mattias Ekström’s Ford were less than six minutes behind.
But in a brief moment near the end, Ratgen opened the way for almost a full day.
“It was really, really difficult, one of the most difficult stages I’ve ever been on,” he said. “There are no bike lanes and a lot of the tracks are very, very small tracks. The rain washed away a lot of the tracks. You really don’t want to be open the last two days, but Brett did a great job getting us here. For this car to be able to do a two-day marathon is actually an amazing job by the team because this car was tested for the first time three months ago.”
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Roman moved from seventh to fourth, and Guthrie moved from 13th to sixth. They were pulled apart by Ford teammate Carlos Sainz, with the four-time champion trailing by less than nine minutes with eight stages remaining in the race, which includes another two-day marathon outside Bisa next week.
Argentinian rider Luciano Benavides won the 356km motorcycle stage, following in the footsteps of his brother Kevin, who won the Hail stage in 2024.
Hero’s Ignacio Cornejo finished nearly four minutes behind in second, with defending champion Daniel Sanders finishing third.
Benavidez was chasing KTM teammate and stage one winner Edgar Canet until Canet came to a halt at around 240km after the foam on his rear wheel melted. Canette lost an hour. He started the day in fourth place but has dropped out of the title race. Ross Branch also lost over an hour, falling from sixth place overall.
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Benavidez is preparing to compete in his ninth Dakar after recovering from knee, shoulder and back injuries suffered at the Morocco Rally in October. He moved up to third in the overall standings, six minutes behind teammate Saunders, who regained the lead from Honda’s Tosha Salena and Ricky Brabec.
Brabec remained in second place, two minutes behind, but Sharena received a 10-minute penalty for forgetting to leave the bivouac between the flags. He remains fourth, just 12 minutes behind.
Teammate Adrien van Beveren, who had finished third the past two years, was running second on the stage when a wire got caught in his wheel. He lost 30 minutes and recovered to ninth place, but was 53 minutes behind overall.
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AP Racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing