With just four days to go, Dakar 2025 is drawing to a close. Why the ninth step on Tuesday can make a preliminary decision.
The timeline for stage 9 is comparatively short; The route leads to rapid descents from Riyadh to Haradh. Already at 4:55 am local time, the motorcycle unit will leave the bivouac and cover the 112 km route on the asphalt to reach the starting point. Luciano Benavides (Red Bull KTM) will open the race day at 7 am. After the evaluation of 357 km, another 120 km should be driven on public roads.
The field is now very narrow: of the 134 drivers, only 78 are still in the race, 36 have stopped due to accidents or defects and the rest are still out of the competition.
Tuesday’s difficulty will be navigation required, especially for early starters. The lane should be opened by Luciano Benavides, the Red Bull KTM teammate of Dakar leader Daniel Sanders, who is in seventh place. The Australian is eleven minutes ahead of Honda rider Tosha Schareina, who must start the journey in third place.
It is easy to imagine which side has the advantage. Schareina can only roar for six minutes before taking the lead herself. Benavides can act strategically and deliberately to take things more slowly so that this happens as soon as possible. Sanders, on the other hand, has six pilots ahead of him and a big chance to catch up.
Teams and drivers should also consider how things will proceed on stage 10. Because if the participants have spent the night in Haradh, they will drive to the hated area of the Empty Quarter on Wednesday. Here there is only sand and big sand dunes to conquer. Here too, the starting position will play a decisive role.
