Stage 12: Al-Henakiya – Yanbu 311km, liaison 409km
With racing kilometres rapidly running out and an overnight overall lead of eight minutes in his back pocket, Nasser Al-Attiyah and Fabian Lurquin effectively sealed victory after banking another stage win in their Dacia Sandrider.
In another milestone for the Qatari driver, stage 12 was his 50th Dakar stage victory, equalling the all time record held by Ari Vatanen and Stéphane Peterhansel.
Yes, there is one more stage, a short 108km blast around Yanbu, but with a 15 minute overall lead over Ford Racing’s Nani Roma, it is almost a done deal.
Friday’s stage podium was filled out by Mitch Guthrie/Kellon Walch (+1’04) and Toby Price/Armand Monleon (+1’25”), giving three manufacturers a bite at the cherry.
Mattias Ekstrom/Emil Bergkvist brought their Raptor home 24 seconds off the podium in fourth and bumped Loeb off the overall podium by 29 seconds, while the standout driver from Dakar ’26, Eryk Goczal and co-driver Szymon Gospodarczyk beat his dad for fifth position by a minute and eight seconds.
Loeb had issues though: There were lots of stones, lots of rocks. We had a pretty good special until not far from the finish. At one point, around 20 km from the finish, we got lost in a zone of big rocks. I had to push to avoid getting stuck, then we got a puncture and had to change the wheel. We’ll do the maths tonight and think about what strategy we can use for tomorrow and we’ll do our best”.
Marek Goczal/Maciej Marton duly took sixth pipped Sebastien Loeb/Edouard Boulanger by ten seconds. Nani Roma/Alex Haro, second in the overall standings, strolled home in eighth position followed by the disappointed and frustrated Toyota Gazoo Racing W2RC pair of Henk Lategan/Brett Cummings, who started from 23rd position in the morning.
Carlos Sainz/Lucas Cruz rounded out the top ten, making it four Fords in the top positions.
The stage started as most others with the top ten crews covered by the same minute with the charge headed by Guthrie and Lategan. Loeb and Al-Attiyah followed closely behind with the rest of the usual pack following.By km 94, Nasser and Loeb headed the time sheets.
Ekstrom had a big push over the next section and took the lead but by km 184, Al-Attiyah was back in front, albeit by 15 seconds with Toby Price having a great run in third.
In the provisional overall standings, Al-Attiyah has an almost unassailable lead of 16’02” over Roma, with Ekstrom just over six minutes behind his teammate.
Ekstrom was happy to fight his way back onto the podium; “We had a good stage. I’m impressed with Emil because I said in the morning that I would like to try and push but when you go full gas and you have no marks, it’s so difficult for the navigators. I’m very happy with what he did today and also the car was working fine, no issues or no punctures […]. The marathon was still hard to accept and to swallow that we had issues there, but yesterday was good and today I feel good.”
Ricky Brabec took the line honours in RallyGP, giving Honda another stage win. Luciano Benavides rolled in in second place with Tosha Shareina taking third on his Honda. The overall standings mirrored the stage results.
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