The sixth stage of the 2025 Dakar saw no real change in the overall standings. Henk Lategan (Toyota Gazoo Racing) still leads from Yazeed Al -Rajhi (Overdrive Racing). However, there was a really bad news for SA fans as Giniel de Villiers (Toyota Gazoo Racing) who had to retire. The 2009 winner’s co-pilot Dirk von Zitzewitz was suffering with an injury that the race medics were not happy for him to continue. De Villier’s streak of consecutive finishes comes to an end with his last for the team. 2025 Dakar stage 7 was another long stage that consisted of a 418 km loop around Duwadimi.

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Another Retiree

Toby Price and Sam Sunderland also retired from the race ahead of 2025 Dakar Stage 7. Both former winners on two-wheels, the pair were having a really impressive debut as co-pilot in a Hilux. Co-driver Sunderland suffered a concussion. “Unfortunately, we’ve chosen to withdraw from the Dakar due to medical reasons”, he shared on social media a few hours ago. “Let’s hope this won’t be the last. Time will tell.”

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Playing the Game

Henk Lategan finished seventh yesterday, allowing his teammate Yazeed Al Rajhi to close the gap in the general classification. Lategan admits that he eased up a bit to avoid having to open on the separate course for cars today: “We didn’t push really hard, we tried to be safe today, especially with the coming days and the bikes not opening the road, so we don’t really want to be close to the front.”

Third place man, and former race winner Nasser Al-Attiyah had a similar plan. The Qatari hoped yesterday that other competitors would step up to handle the navigation duties at the front today. “If someone else opens tomorrow, it’ll be good for us”, he said candidly.

Click here to read about Giniel de Villiers most memorable motoring moment.

The early pace was set by Mattias Ekstrom (Ford Raptor) and the Mini X-Raid drivers. They traded times to take the lead of the stage. But Toyota driver Lucas Moraes was not letting them have it all their own way. The Brazilian driver had nothing to lose today as he sits quite far down the order. He gave it full beans today.

At the Flag

Moraes proved unbeatable today as he won the stage by almost eight minutes. Ekstrom and his teammate Mitch Guthrie were second and third today. Lucas Moraes, who had fallen more than 3 hr 30 behind in the overall standings after a mechanical in stage six bounced back to claim his second stage victory following his triumph in stage 3 in 2024. He is the the seventh different winner in this year’s race.

Moraes said: “Yeah, to be honest, since we started so far behind, we were lucky because we definitely got all the tracks for us. So yeah, we didn’t have nothing to lose today, so we pushed a lot. And nice to win one more stage in the Dakar. These things are really hard to get, so happy to score some points for the championship as well. And got to keep fighting. I think now it’s going to be, maybe tomorrow it’s going to be just like this one today and then we’re going to start reaching the Empty Quarter. And there will be some strategy of course playing to not open the bigger one that we have there. But otherwise, so far so good and happy with the win.”

Al-Attiyah was fourth ahead of Seth Quintero. The quickest South African today was Saood Variawa (Toyota Gazoo Racing) with race leader Lategan in 15th. His closest rival on the overall standings, Al Rajhi, was 7th, seven minutes faster than the race leader. As a result he has chopped the lead to a slender 21 sec. Ekstrom is now within ten minutes of the leader and Al-Attiyah is almost 22 min adrift.

Standings after 2025 Dakar Stage 7

    1. Henk Lategan (Toyota Gazoo Racing) 37 hr 13 min 08 sec
    2. Yazeed Al Rajhi (Overdrive Racing) +21 sec
    3. Mattias Ekstrom (Ford M-Sport) +10 min 25 sec
    4. Nasser Al-Attiyah (Dacia Sandrider) +21 min 57 sec
    5. Mitch Guthrie (Ford M-Sport) +40 min 01 sec
    6. Mathieu Serradori (Century Racing) +54 min 20 sec
    7. Juan Cruz Yacopini (Overdrive Racing) +1 hr 13 min 05 sec
    8. Seth Quintero (Toyota Gazoo Racing) +01 hr 28 min 32 sec
    9. Joao Ferreira (X-Rain Mini) +01 hr 58 min 25 sec
    10. Brian Baragwanath (Century Racing) +02 hr 07 min 38 min

Times were correct at the time of publication, full stage results can be found here.