South Africa's Lategan retakes Dakar lead from Al-Rajhi

With two stages left, the two Toyota drivers are locked in a fierce battle for victory

Toyota's South African Henk Lategan regained the overall lead in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday with a two minutes and 27 seconds advantage over Saudi Arabia's Yazeed Al-Rajhi going into the penultimate stage.

Lategan (Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux), who lost top spot to Al-Rajhi (Team Overdrive Hilux) after Tuesday's stage having held the lead since stage 2, finished 24th in the shortest stage so far, a 120km ride in the dunes between Haradh and Shubaytah, but was more than nine minutes ahead of his rival.

It was a strategic race by Lategan, gaining enough time to retake the lead but not wanting to finish too high up in the 10th stage and avoid starting at the front in Thursday's stage to benefit from the tyre tracks of the early starters.

“It wasn't the plan to go quickly today [Wednesday]. We were going at a nice and steady pace,” Lategan said.

“Hopefully, there are some other guys behind us that were a bit quicker so they can open tomorrow.”

Spain's Nani Roma, twice a Dakar winner, took the victory in stage 10, his first stage success since 2015, with the Ford Raptor driver finishing 18 seconds ahead of Brazil's Lucas Moraes, winner of stage 7.

In the motorcycle category South Africa's Michael Docherty took the stage win while overall leader Daniel Sanders of Australia stretched his advantage over nearest rival Tosha Schareina of Spain to 16 minutes and 31 seconds.