Sensational Sanders soars ahead

Daniel Sanders has made history by taking a fifth stage win in the 2025 Dakar Rally to strengthen his grip on the bikes lead.

Victory in Stage 7 saw Sanders become the first rider to take five stage wins at an individual Dakar Rally since fellow Australian Toby Price did it in 2016.

Sanders’ latest success came to the tune of 3m36s as he sped ahead of Edgar Canet and nearest rally rival Tosha Schareina.

It means the Aussie KTM star holds a formidable 15m33s lead with just five stages left to run.

Sanders said it was far from easy however, with heavy rain impacting the 419km route.

“It was pretty fast, very fast,” he reflected. 

“Technical at the start, we had a lot of rain, but it was only at the start, so it was a pretty wet line to see in front and just had us kind of correct and not follow the mistakes with the navigation. 

“The speed was good, head was good, so it was a much better day.”

Once again Toby Hederics kept the good times rolling for Australia, being 24th and pushing himself to 21st overall, just 6m away from the top 20.

But unfortunately Andrew Joseph Houlihan had another battle, being second last.

For the car competitors rain and roadblock mistakes caused chaos in a shortened Stage 7.

Toyota’s Lucas Moraes held off Ford rival Mattias Ekstrom and won it by what became a dominant 7m41s success.

Ekstrom led at the first checkpoint but lost time as competitors had to tackle a roadblock error at the 158km mark and organisers adjusted the route to ensure medical helicopters could be deployed.

Theere was also significant drama in the fight for the overall victory.

Henk Lategan’s lead was effectively wiped out as he struggled his way to 15th.

This saw his lead melt to just 21s over Yazeed Al Rajhi.

Lategan explained some navigation errors and a flat proved costly.

“There was one canyon where everybody was getting lost,” he said.

“And we were a little bit nervous going into there because you see cars coming from the front and cars coming from all angles out the mountains. 

“And at the end, we went all the way out the canyon and then finally found our way. 

“So we hopped from, let’s say, seventh or so on the road all the way to first. And then we were opening for quite a while.

“And then we made one or two small navigation errors. We had a puncture earlier on. 

“So, not a bad day. We’re happy to have found that one waypoint, but not the perfect day.”

Dakar continues with a 487km ride from Al Duwadimi to Riyadh.

Dakar Rally bikes Overall classification

Image: Flavien Duhamel / Red Bull Content Pool

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