Only one of the top 10 prologue qualifiers made the top 10 in the opening stage.
Stage 1: AlUla – Al Hanakiyah; 414km +130 liaison
Guillaume de Meuvis and Xavier Panseri, driving their first ever stage in the Ultimate class powered their Overdrive Toyota Hilux T1+ to a 1:44 win over Audi Sport’s Carlos Sainz/Lucas Cruz.
Sainz was second overall at km 225 behind the stage leader and teammate Mattias Ekström/Emil Bergkvist. At the following waypoint, Sainz was in the lead only to drop back behind the Overdrive Toyota crew.
Giniel de Villiers/Dennis Murphy started 68th in their Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux T1+ after losing their way for three minutes in the prologue, ended third overall, 9:18 off the lead.
Lithuanian Vaidotas Zala and Paolo Fiuza brought their Mini JCW home in fourth ahead of Romain Dumas/Max Delfino’s Rebellion Racing Toyota Hilux T+1, who in turn fended off the Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux T1+ of Lucas Moraes and Armand Monleon.
A stunning debut drive from Dakar rookie Guy Botterill and Brett Cummings – who started 47th – netted seventh overall in their factory Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux T1+ after running as high as second with just 20km to go.
Yazeed Al Rajhi/Timo Gottschalk made it six Toyotas in the top 10 setting an identical time in their Overdrive Hilux as that of Botterill.
Mathieu Serradori/Loic Minaudier was the top Century Racing car home in ninth, eight seconds ahead of Mattias Ekström/Emil Bergkvist’s Audi RS Q E-tron.
Another stellar drive from 26th saw another Toyota Gazoo Racing rookie, 18-year-old Sa’ood Variawa/Francois Cazalet take 11th position after a measured drive.
It was a shocking day for the BRX Hunters with both Sebastian Loeb/Fabian Lurquin haemorrhage time to end 20th (+22:47) and Nasser Al Attiyah/Mathieu Baumel in 22nd (+24:47). Loeb lost time changing a broken steering rack.
Despite stopping to help a fallen fellow competitor (the 25 minutes was credited), Botswana hero Ross Branch rode his Hero home to a compelling victory to take the overall lead, while Bradley Cox starred to bring his BAS KTM home fourth and first among the R2 class privateers
It wasn’t a good day for some of the bikers. The surprise prologue winner, Tosha Schareina crashed out at the 240km mark and was airlifted out of the stage.
Michael Docherty, who was leading the Rally 2 stage until km 318, took a tumble at km 323. He has hurt his hip and has been airlifted to Medina Hospital.
Tomorrow’s stage takes the rally from Al Hanakiyah to Al Duwadimi with 470 racing kilometres lying in wait.
