Dakar 2025, Stage 9: Al-Attiyah sets fastest time as Al-Rajhi takes overall lead

Nasser Al-Attiyah Recovered from a tough performance on Monday to claim victory on Stage 9 of the Dakar Rally despite a puncture for the Toyota driver henk letgan PROMOTED Yazid Al-Razi For overall leadership.

Dacia’s Al-Attiyah and Ford rival Mattias Ekström initially dueled for victory in the 357km test between Riyadh and Harad, with both taking the lead in the first part of the day.

Qatari driver Al-Attiyah took the early lead in his Dacia Sandrider, before Ekström flexed his muscles to jump ahead 81km into the stage.

The five-time Dakar winner retook the lead at the following checkpoint and began to extend his lead in the second half of the day, opening up a lead of over a minute with less than 100 km of racing remaining.

As Ekstrom dropped further back, Al-Attiyah continued to overtake his rivals, eventually reaching the finish line with a gap of 2m47s over X-Raid Mini’s Guillaume de Mevius, who moved up to second place.

The Belgian remained third for most of the all-gravel stage on Tuesday, but achieved his best performance of 2025 since his win on Stage 6 by overtaking Ekstrom at the 217km mark.

Meanwhile, Overdrive’s Al-Rajhi turned in a solid performance in the customer Toyota to finish third and drop Ekstrom’s Ford to fourth.

Al-Rajhi teammate Rokas Baciuska rounded out the top five, ahead of the second Ford of debutant Mitch Guthrie Jr.

No factory Toyotas finished in the top 10, as Guy Botterill crashed at the 272 km mark and Lategan suffered an early puncture which took him seven minutes to fix.

The South African suffered further bleeding late in the stage, ultimately finishing in 11th place, 16 minutes behind – just one day after He won stage 8,

His troubles allowed Al-Razi to take the lead in the Ultimate class with only three stages remaining, the Saudi driver moving 7 minutes 09 seconds to the top of the standings.

Ekstrom held on to third place in Ford’s first factory outing, with Al-Attiyah now less than a minute behind the last-remaining Dacia.

Guthrie Jr. is a half-hour behind in fifth, while Matthew Serradori has strengthened his hold on sixth despite a low-key performance on Tuesday.