The ninth stage of the 2026 Dakar Rally opened the second Marathon of this year’s edition of the event, and saw Daniel Sanders regain the RallyGP lead.
Michael Docherty made a somewhat surprising appearance in the top-three, the Bas World KTM rider having withdrawn from a stage last week before rejoining under Rally 2 rules. He was 4’50’’ off Schareina’s time and almost 90 seconds ahead of Ricky Brabec in fourth
Nani Roma now leads the Ultimate class, Nasser Al-Attiyah losing the top spot for the first time since the end of last week.
Carlos Sainz’s seventh-fastest stage time leaves him second overall now. 57 seconds separate Sainz from his compatriot and Ford teammate.
Mattias Ekstrom, who was long the leading Ford driver, is now fifth overall 11’19’’ off the lead, while Sebastien Loeb fell backwards on Tuesday’s stage and is now over 20 minutes off the lead again.
Former RallyGP winner Toby Price continued his impressive form of late, finishing third on the stage and rising to seventh in the overall standings. The Australian is now 26 minutes off the lead and just under six minutes behind Loeb.
Tomorrow’s Stage 10 will conclude the second Marathon Stage of the rally over a route of just over 400km, 371 of which are special.
