Ha’il – Al Duwadimi Stage 605km (including 171km transfer), liaison 224km
Guillaume de Mevius and Mathieu Baumel broke Toyota’s stranglehold on the 2025 Dakar Rally, winning the sixth stage in their X-Raid Mini JCW beating their diesel-powered X-Raid Portuguese teammates Joao Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro by 1:43 in the process.
The delighted Belgian said: “For now, we’re sitting at the top of the leaderboard. We had a good stage, finally! Our goal was to claw back some time and pick up points for the championship, so we gave it everything we had. My car still bears a few scars from last week and today we did a bit of flying, but thankfully we didn’t hit anything. The rest day is also a chance to hit reset and we’re heading into a better rhythm after some tough moments in the first week. It’s not exactly my kind of terrain. On the sand, I can hold my own, but I know I’ve still got room to improve.”
Five different drivers have now won the opening six stages with only Seth Quintero boasting two stage wins to date.
It was a bitter-sweet day for the X-Raid team for Guerlain Chicherit and Alex Winocq crashed heavily, rolling multiple times after hitting a jump flat out. The rear of the car kicked up and dug in, leaving the French crew, who were uninjured, as helpless passengers as the car barrel rolled five times.
The first half of the stage before the transfer belonged to Guy Botterill and Dennis Murphy in their Toyota Gazoo Racing SA Hilux. Hampered by technical difficulties early in the rally, they came out guns blazing, opening a decent lead over Yazeed Al-Rajhi/Timo Gottschalk’s Toyota up the transfer point.
Nasser Al-Attiyah/Edouard Boulanger ended third in their Dacia Sandrider, clawing back five minutes after a hard run. If the reigning W2RC champion continues his devastating form today, he can be back in the hunt for the overall win with six stages still remaining.
Botterill eventually finished1½ minutes further back in fourth position.
Out of the top four finishers, only Al-Attiyah was within half an hour of the overall leaders so attention turned to the battle between Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa’s Henk Lategan/Brett Cummings pairing and Yazeed Al-Rajhi/Timo Gottaschalk in their Overdrive Toyota Hilux.
Rocas Baciuska and Oriol Mena brought their Overdrive Toyota home in sixth place, 72 seconds ahead of Lategan.
The Saudi driver took a three-minute bite out of Lategan’s lead. The SA Rally-Raid champion missed last year’s Dakar due to an injury and much of the stage was the same as last year, so Lategan’s lack of knowledge of the conditions and danger points weighed against him. “We knew today maybe we’d lose a little bit of time,” said Lategan. “It was the first day of some real dunes and mostly sandy tracks. The last 230kays or so I haven’t done and Brett told me it’s the same as last year. Obviously these guys know where the road goes and where the dangerous spots are. It was not really our day to push or make up time; it’s more risky to do it that way. I think we have a decent road position for the coming days.”
Lategan though, still holds the rally lead by 7 minutes 16 seconds.
Fords Raptors filled the last three places in the top 10, headed by Matias Ekstrom/Emil Bergkvist followed by Martin Prokop/Viktor Chytka’s Jipocar Raptor who in turn was six seconds ahead of Nani Roma/Alex Haro’s M-Sport Raptor.
It was a bad day for two motorbike champions: the day started on the wrong foot for two South African champions; 2024 World Rally 2 Champion, Bradley Cox took a tumble on his BAS World KTM. He remounted but soon stopped with neck pains to be airlifted out of the race. Almost concurrently Botswana’s 2024 World Rally Raid Moto Champion Ross Branch crashed his Hero Moto. Ross was able to walk to his casevac helicopter, but he too, is out of Dakar 2025.
Honda riders Ricky Brabec and Adrien van Beveren took the day from Branch’s Hero Moto teammate José Ignacio Cornejo. overall leader Daniel Sanders meantime consolidated his advantage on his KTM.
Overall positions (Provisional)
| 1 | H. Lategan/B. Cummings | Toyota Gazoo Racing SA Hilux | 32:51:36 |
| 2 | Y. Al Rajhi/T. Gottschalk | Overdrive Toyota Hilux | +7:16 |
| 3 | M. Ekstrom/E. Bergkvist | M-Sport Ford Raptor | +22:27 |
| 4 | N. Al-Attiyah/E. Boulanger | Dacia Sandrider | +30:25 |
| 5 | M. Guthrie/K. Walch | M-Sport Ford Raptor | +50:16 |
| 6 | M. Serradori/L. Minaudier | Century Racing CR-7 | +56:28 |
| 7 | J. Yacopini/D. Oliveras | Overdrive Toyota Hilux | +1:14:18 |
| 8 | S. Quintero/D. Zenz | Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux | +1:36:37 |
| 9 | J. Ferreira/F. Palmeiro | X-Raid Mini JCW | +1:47:13 |
| 10 | B. Baragwanath/L. Cremer | Century Racing CR-7 | +2:05:30 |
