STAGE 10 Highlights
Dakar 2026 | Stage 10 | BIVOUAC REFUGE > BISHA
MOTORBIKES I SAND AND EMOTIONS FLOW FOR VAN BEVEREN AND SANDERS
- He is only human, after all. Daniel Sanders began the 2025 season with a Dakar title and capped it with the world championship. His ultra-dominant performance had raised fears that the Australian and his KTM would steamroll the opposition on the loop starting and ending in Yanbu. Indeed, the favourite to defend his own title was sticking to a tight plan and got out of bed this morning with more than 6 minutes over Ricky Brabec at the top of the overall. Despite his handling skills, robust physique and proven navigational acumen at high speeds, it all went down the drain when he crashed and hurt his left shoulder 138 km into the special. „Chucky“ soldiered on to the finish but lost nearly half an hour.
- This is probably curtains for the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s bid for glory, but the Austrian outfit has other cards to play in the fight for the 2026 title. Luciano Benavides is still in the mix after starting the special in ninth position and coming tantalisingly close to the win. He would really like to get his hands on the coveted Bedouin trophy in three days. For that to happen, the Argentinian will have to erase a deficit of about 20 seconds and prevail in an unpredictable duel with his Monster Energy Honda HRC opponent Ricky Brabec.
- The stage win went to Adrien Van Beveren, who has been on a roller-coaster since the start in Yanbu. This year, he has broken his duck on the road to Bisha, claiming the special on the day that the bivouac pays tribute to Thierry Sabine, who created Paris–Dakar and the Enduro du Touquet, the event where Van Beveren put his name on the map with three victories (2014 through 2016). The seventh Dakar stage win of his career also propelled the man from northern France one step higher in the hierarchy, where he now stands in sixth place, about an hour from the American leader.
CARS: SERRADORI AND AL ATTIYAH SHARE THE SPOILS
- Mathieu Serradori has more than one trick up his sleeve. When he claimed his maiden stage win back in 2020, he was a minnow who managed to snatch the prize from the great white sharks from time to time. He used to race in a two-wheel-drive car for the sake of Romanticism and quote poetry by Jean-Louis Schlesser. All in all, he was far from the top of the food chain. The driver from the French Riviera has since moved up to a whole new level, with a career-best sixth place overall last season after switching to a 4×4 T1 in his CR7. His performance this year has been a mixed bag, but today he hit the jackpot on the 420 km special to Bisha, defeating Al Attiyah by over 6 minutes and rocketing up four places in the overall, where he now sits fifth, 33 minutes from the Qatari… Swimming with the sharks!
- In the fight for the title, the big winner of the marathon stage was Nasser Al Attiyah, who stamped his authority on the dunes and moved back into the overall lead while leaving the competition in the dust. 1′10″ separated the provisional top 3 yesterday. The Dacia driver took that and turned it into a 12-minute gap over his closest rival, Henk Lategan, who ran out of fuel and made a navigation blunder, and 12′50″ over Nani Roma, who stayed on the provisional podium.
- The podium is back within reach for the second Dacia Sandrider, with Sébastien Loeb behind the wheel, who moved up to fourth place, 23 minutes behind his brother in arms, after Carlos Sainz and Mattias Ekström ran into trouble.
PERFORMANCE OF THE DAY: MULEC TAKING NO PRISONERS
Toni Mulec is racing in his fourth Dakar. After cracking the top 25 in 2023 and finishing fifteenth and then thirteenth in the last two editions, the amateur rider is hungry for more. The Slovenian stands tenth overall as the top-ranked privateer and is closer to the Rally2 lead than at any other point since the race left Yanbu. Preston Campbell, the newly minted Honda factory rider, has held the top spot ahead of Mulec since stage 6. The BAS World KTM rider slashed his deficit from 17′28″ to 2′31″ today, triggering a red alert for the American. The fight for the second division of the motorbike category will come down to a battle between these two, with the rest of the field more than 1 h 45 back. Campbell is discovering the Dakar and is a shoo-in for top rookie honours. Until now, his team had encouraged him to ride conservatively. A change of strategy may be in order, as Mulec is taking no prisoners as he readies himself to board the HRC ship.
A CRUSHING BLOW: END OF A TREND FOR VAN DEN BRINK?
Van den Brink Jr had climbed one rung of the ladder every time he tried, starting with fourth overall in 2023, then third in 2024 and then second in 2025. Can you guess what the young Dutchman’s goal was at the start in Yanbu? The truck title seemed clearly within reach, with two stage wins, the prologue and an overall margin of half an hour over Vaidotas Žala at the start of the day. Yet, sometimes, birthdays are full of woe, as Van den Brink found out today. His 24th year on Earth started with a broken drive shaft at km 16, but that was only the beginning. He tried to bounce back and limit the damage to 45 minutes at km 281, but he ran into trouble again when he got stuck in the sand at km 286 and had to be fished out by his team principal, Martin Macík. The results at the finish dealt a grievous blow to his hopes of victory in Yanbu in three days. He is now third, 35′30″ from the new sheriff in town, Vaidotas Žala.
STAT OF THE DAY: 2
French entrants have triumphed in both categories, with Adrien Van Beveren prevailing in the FIM special and Mathieu Serradori emerging victorious from the FIA stage. It is not exactly a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence; it had last happened in 2024, when Sébastien Loeb and VBA were awarded medals at the bivouac in AlUla. However, the tricolore double in Bisha is a bit different, as the driver from the French Riviera is not yet a prolific stage hunter like the other two. This was his second win, adding to the one he claimed in a two-wheel-drive car back in 2020. This French success came as the Dakar pays tribute to Thierry Sabine, who created the event in 1979, a few years after launching the Enduro du Touquet, where VBA has taken the top spot three times: „I’m full of gratitude and admiration for him because he created the two events that have shaped my life as a rider“, said the Frenchman at the finish.
TRUCKS ACTION
MEGA-GALLERY
Quelle / Source / Pictures / Bilder: Dakar Rally, A.S.O
