But who was hedging their bets in Saudi Arabia?
Image: Ford, Ekstrom topped Prologue Photo: Ford Motorsport
Ford Raptor crews, German Mattias Ekström and Emil Bergkvist and US duo Mitch Guthrie and Kellon Walch may have emerged at the top of Dakar’s 2026 Prologue near Yanbu, Saudi Arabia on Saturday afternoon, but it can be taken with salt that several of their rivals ‘took it easy’ in search of a better starting position, further back on Sunday’s first official stage grid.
Dacia Sandrider teammates, five-time winner, Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah and Fabian Lurquin took the early lead only for Ekström and Guthrie to move ahead a short while later. Behind them, Toyota crews, Americans Seth Quintero and Andrew Short’s Overdrive Gazoo Hilux, 2025 winners, Saudi home hero Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk, and Poles Eryk Goczal and Szymon Gospodarczyk slipped ahead of Spanish Ford Raptor crews Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz, and Nani Roma and Álex Haro.
Belgian Guillaume de Mevius and Mathieu Baumel then sounded a Mini warning as they jumped to third, before Frenchmen Mathieu Serradori and Loïc Minaudier’s South African made Century Factory CR7 and 2025 South Africans, champion Saood Variawa and Frenchman Francois Cazalet moved between Sainz and Roma. So Ekström and Bergkvist set off first Sunday morning ahead of Guthrie and Walch and de Mevius and Baumel. Behind them, Al-Attiyah, Quintero, Al-Rajhi, Goczal, Sainz and Serradori and Variawa complete the top ten.
Conspicuous by their absence in the top ten, Toyota Gazoo Hilux crews, former bike winner Toby Price and Armand Monleon’s Overdrive machine and South African Guy Botterill and Spaniard Oriol Mena’s SVR version, and Dacia Sandrider teams Sébastien Loeb and Édouard Boulanger and Lucas Moraes and Denis Zenz, and SA Century Factory C7R crew Brian Baragwanath and Leonard Cremer’s SA Century however peppered the top-25. Slow? Or just biding their time? Sunday will tell!
Of the other South Africans, Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings’ Overdrive Gazoo Hilux suffered a puncture later in the stage en route to a provisional 32nd while German Daniel Schröder with SA navigator Henry Köhne navigating appeared to be struggling in their WCT Amarok. The balance of the South African car crews, as well as the Stock, Side by Sides, Challenger and Truck entries were still to complete the stage at the time of writing. Click here for the Dakar Bike Report.
With 5000 kilometres of racing over 15 days and a total of 8000 km to the finish on 17 January, Dakar 2026 moves on to another 305 km loop around Yanbu on Sunday’s first official stage.
