It had been almost a decade since a motorcycle racer had dominated the Dakar Rally in this way. and his KTM once again proved intractable under the downpour in the middle of the Saudi Arabian desert to win the seventh stage of the 2025 edition, a loop special around Al Duwadimi with 460 timed off-road kilometers and more than 700 counting the road connections. Neither the rain nor the pressure of seeing himself ever closer to his first trophy Touareg They made the 30-year-old pilot hesitate, who completed the day’s route in 4h10m33s and once again gained ground on the rest of the pursuers.
“It has been a crazy day, once again, but we are trying to do everything possible to win and put ourselves in the best possible position to do so,” he commented. Chucky as soon as you cross the finish line. The last winner of five stages in the same Dakar on motorcycles was his compatriot Toby Price in 2016, who took the overall victory also on a KTM. , remains his strongest rival for the crown. Third at the finish line, the 29-year-old Valencian is more than 15 minutes behind in the classification, a difference that is difficult to bridge in an increasingly evenly matched motorcycle category that has come to be decided by seconds in some of the last editions.
“Daniel is being very constant, very fast. “He is having a great race and I have a lot of respect for him, but my goal is to ensure that he doesn’t relax and to be able to fight until the end.” “We are not going to fool ourselves, 15 minutes on motorcycles, nowadays, are a lot. After 500 kilometers of stage we are always within a second of difference, but there are many days and kilometers ahead, and in the Dakar anything can happen,” he added. The favorites for the final victory indicate that the eighth and ninth stages can be decisive, since the arrival of the Rub al Khali desert and the large dunes from the tenth onwards can compact the group and minimize the possibility of marking big differences in the race. .
In a very complete stage and with all the ingredients that make the Dakar incomparable, it dazzled again. The 19-year-old Catalan was second in the special, three and a half minutes behind the leader and a few seconds faster than his compatriot Schareina. The KTM pearl had an intense day, starting with the rain and with an additional hour and a half stoppage at the refueling point due to the digital tablet that was driving everyone crazy. “She went crazy and started whistling,” he lamented. The stewards stopped their time until the technicians managed to solve the problem and the kid from La Garriga was able to start walking again.
“I am still not aware of what this result means. Before coming here, everything goes through your head, but when you see the level there is and how difficult it is to be ahead in a stage, the truth is that I did not expect it,” he added. Canet is tenth in the general classification, almost an hour and a half behind the leader Sanders, a position that allows him to dream of victory in the Rally2 category, where he has a 20-minute margin over the Austrian Tobias Ebster, best rookie in the last edition of the test.
In the car category, a new mess with the road book forced the FIA to cancel the times of a 20-kilometer section for all competitors. Up to 30 cars were lost due to an erroneous indication by the organization. Lucas Moraes’ Toyota took advantage of the confusion and its delayed starting position to overtake the rest of the favorites in the stage, won in 4h01m49s. Leader Hank Lategan (Toyota) was the big loser of the day, and saw his margin in the general classification narrow noticeably after leaving almost 10 minutes behind Yazeed Al Rajhi (Toyota), Mattias Ekstrom (Ford) and Nasser Al-Attiyah ( Dacia). The South African maintains the lead over the Saudi for 21 seconds, while the Swede is 10 minutes away and the Qatari, winner of five Tuaregshe seems capable of everything in 22 minutes.
