2026 Dakar Stage 2 Results – Toyota on Top

The 2026 Dakar Rally is currently underway with stage one taking place on Sunday. 2026 Dakar Stage 1 had a surprise winner in the shape of the X-Raid Mini of Guillame de Mevius (as you can read here). Read our ‘Dakar 101‘ article here if you are still learning about the race. 2026 Dakar Stage 2 took place from Yanbu to Al Ula. A 400 km timed section followed a 100 km liaison. The stage provided a wide array of conditions underfoot. Rocky sections meant that a pit stop was used mid-stage for the second day in a row.

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The results from the opening stage showed that no team can be discounted and that even champions are not exempt from Dakar troubles. The podium featured three different brands: Mini, Dacia and Ford with two Toyotas in the top ten. Defending champ Yazeed Al Rajhi has already lost 28 minutes to the race leaders, most of it from time penalties related to speeding in controlled sections of the stage.

Setting the Pace

Teams will now be in their stride after the opening stage. As a result a few crews turned up the pace through the early part of the stage. Times chopped and changed throughout the stage with no clear favourite coming to the fore early on. What was clear, though, was that Toyota turned up the pace.

Toyota occupied the top six places on the timesheets at one point. Seth Quintero and Saood Variawa traded times for the virtual lead. Variawa’s teammate Guy Botterill seemed to suffer mechanical issues as he lost about 20 min early in the day. The top positions were being contested by the Toyotas, who were being chased hard by the Dacia squad of Sebastien Loeb, Nasser Al-Attiyah and Lucas Moraes.

A Trio of Toyotas

Times were traded atop the leaderboard with mere seconds separating the frontrunners. At the end of the stage the first 15 cars were covered by ten minutes. But when all was said and crews arrived at the end of the 400 km, it was Toyota that claimed the day’s honours.

Seth Quintero set a blistering time that no one else could match. As a result the American claimed his third stage victory in the Ultimate class. Henk Lategan rocketed up the timesheets to claim second on the day. Defending champ Yazeed Al Rajhi made it a clean sweep of the podium positions for the Overdrive team in their Hiluxes.

Toby Price and Joao Ferreira made it a top five for Toyota. This is only the third time in Dakar history that a single manufacturer has claimed the top five positions in a stage. The Dacia Sandriders of Loeb and Al-Attiyah were seventh and eighth. Mattias Ekstrom was the first Ford home in 13th. After Ford (on the prologue) and Mini X-raid (on stage 1), a third brand has won in three days.

New Leader

The pace of all contenders today was extremely quick. In addition, it seemed that none of the frontrunners suffered with any issues that cost them time. As a result there is a new rally leader in the shape of Nasser Al Attiyah. Quintero jumps into second with early rally leader De Mevius dropping two places to third.

Said the new race leader: “It was a good day. I am really quite happy to not really go crazy from the beginning, without any punctures. This is what we need to do for the next two or three days and then we can find our rhythm. The key of the Dakar will be tomorrow because I think it will be hard navigation. This area is not easy”.