STAGE 4 Highlights
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Dakar 2026 | Stage 4 | ALULA > BIVOUAC REFUGE
- Strategy is a real factor in rally raids. The fear of getting stuck in a yo-yo dynamic is one of the things that keep elite riders awake at night, especially when the time comes to go all in for the title. Tosha Schareina, however, made a show of panache yesterday and today to claim back-to-back victories. Dakar riders who can win from the front of the field are few and far between. The Spaniard did it with a barnstorming performance that saw him alone at the front for half of the 417 km special en route to his fourth stage win in the event.
- Schareina seized the overall lead to boot, although Ricky Brabec is inside the same second. The two Monster Energy Honda HRC leaders are in a dead heat after five days of racing. The Spaniard holds the lead by virtue of his better performance in today’s stage.
- Skyler Howes, just 10 seconds back, made it a 1-2-3 for Honda and underscored the strength of the Japanese marque. On the flip side, Adrien Van Beveren conceded another 5 minutes and is now teetering on the edge of the top 10, a full 27′24″ behind Schareina.
- Meanwhile, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing are biding their time. Daniel Sanders, fifth at 2′37″, and Edgar Canet, eighth at 3′49″, remain in contention for the overall, especially the man from Down Under, who is just 1′24″ behind Schareina and Brabec and will have a more favourable start position tomorrow.
- The Rally2 class saw its top two riders tailspin out of the fight for the title. A broken wheel prevented Michael Docherty from reaching the bivouac-refuge. He will be slapped with a huge penalty. Meanwhile, Martim Ventura lost almost two hours due to mechanical problems. A podium finish is a long shot now. Their bad luck was a boon for the Dakar rookie Preston Campbell, the son of the American pioneer Johnny Campbell, who now leads the standings. Last but not least, Neels Theric opened his personal account with a stage win, also the first for the Chinese manufacturer Kove.
- These are still early days, but Henk Lategan may have already taken his first step towards glory. Last year, he was locked in a high-stakes duel with Yazeed Al Rajhi until he faltered within sight of the line. The South African, knowing that the Dakar is an indomitable beast, decided to throw caution to the wind in a bid to break the vicious cycle of puncture after puncture. In the end, fortune favoured the bold, with Lategan driving his Toyota Hilux to his fifth career Dakar stage win, putting more than seven minutes into Nasser Al Attiyah and seizing the overall lead by 3′55″ over the Qatari.
- Further back, the Goczał clan turned out in force, with the father, Marek, third at 14′15″, the son, Eryk, fourth at 17′36″, and the uncle, Michał, sixth at 19′53″.
- The Poles will be delighted to have surrounded Sébastien Loeb, fifth at 17′54″. It is all starting to add up for the French driver, now eighth overall at 20 minutes, but he certainly has the skills to turn this around.
- The Toyotas and Dacias are perched at the summit of the ranking, but the Ford Raptors remain within striking distance after making a splash yesterday, The American Mitch Guthrie flopped at the front of the field, haemorrhaging almost 44 minutes, but Mattias Ekström, third at 13′, and Carlos Sainz, fourth at 15′53″, are in a great position going into the latter half of the marathon-refuge stage, which they will begin in twelfth and thirteenth position.
- It was the end of the road for the title holder in the Ultimate class, who had already delivered a subdued performance since the start of a Dakar, in which a question mark hung over his form. In the end, it was three punctures that did Yazeed Al Rajhi in as his Toyota Hilux gave up the ghost at km 234. The Saudi may resume the race after the marathon-refuge stage, but with no chance of fighting for the podium.
STAT OF THE DAY: FABULOUS 4
4 was the magic number in stage 4, held on a course a bit longer than 400 km for both the FIM and the FIA classes.
- 4: Tosha Schareina’s career Dakar special wins (prologue in 2024, stage 11 in 2025, and stages 3 and 4 in 2026)
- 4: the number of Spanish victories in the motorbike category, with Canet and Schareina claiming two apiece in a performance not seen since Pedrero took one and Barreda four in 2017
- 4: the number of drivers who have sat at the top of the ranking (De Mévius, Al Attiyah, Guthrie and Lategan), more than at any point since 2014 (Sousa, Peterhansel, Roma and Sainz)
- 4: the number of manufacturers that have topped the general standings: the Mini X-raid with Guillaume de Mévius, the Dacia Sandrider with Nasser Al Attiyah, the Ford Raptor with Mitch Guthrie and the Toyota Hilux with Henk Lategan
- 4: the number of truck stage winners in as many days: Mitchel van den Brink, Aleš Loprais, Gert Huzink and Martin Macík.
- 4: the number of Challenger stage winners in as many days: David Zille, Lucas del Río, Puck Klaassen and Nicolás Cavigliasso
PERFORMANCE OF THE DAY: GOCZAŁ PRIDE ROARS INTO ACTION
„Our goal is to hog the podium spots; the exact order is irrelevant.“ This has been the modest, down-to-earth aspiration of the Goczałs, a little Polish family, for as long as they have been racing together in the Dakar, going back to the 2023 SSV race. The youngest member of the clan, Eryk, had yet to get his driving licence when his father Marek led the way in 2022, picking up six stage wins en route to fourth place overall, as his uncle Michał claimed two specials and went on to finish fifth. The child prodigy did not disappoint in his debut the following season, bagging the class title along with four stage victories, while his father and uncle contributed another three to the family tally. Their adventure in the lightweight prototype class ended with 15 stage wins in total.
This time round, their Energylandia team bought three Toyota Hiluxes in a bid for Ultimate glory! Their early performances among the top brass have been quite auspicious. They took three out of the top six places in stage 4, with Marek third at 14′15″ from Henk Lategan, Eryk fourth at 17′36″ and Michał sixth at 19′53″. The youngest scion of the family is also the best placed overall, ninth at 21 minutes, with both his kinsmen inside the top 15 too. While this is a cut below title contender level, it will certainly fuel their maximalist ambitions.
CRUSHING BLOWS: DOCHERTY AND VENTURA SUFFER A DEBACLE
Michael Docherty and Martim Ventura had been dominating the Rally2 class since the race got under way, leaving their opponents fighting for scraps. The Portuguese rider had claimed stage 2, with the other specials going to the South African. The two men stood just over three minutes apart in the overall, with a gulf of more than 25 minutes between Docherty and the third-placed rider. Today, Docherty had just blasted through km 126 with the fastest time in the entire motorbike field (as he had already done twice last season) when the foam of his rear tyre came off and the wheel broke, knocking him out of the rally for two days. Meanwhile, Ventura damaged his secondary transmission and limped across the finish line more than 2 h 15 behind Neels Theric, the stage winner in this class. This spells the end of their dreams to succeed Edgar Canet, at a time when Docherty was taking the fight to the RallyGP elite day in, day out and Ventura was hoping to get his hands on the Rally2 title or, at least, top rookie status. The Portuguese rider will find solace in the fact that the new leader is his Monster Energy Honda teammate HRC Preston Campbell, who is now in the pole position to take the Rally2 trophy and top rookie honours.
TRUCKS ACTION
MEGA-GALLERY
Quelle / Source / Pictures / Bilder: Dakar Rally, A.S.O
