South Africa’s Henk Lategan is in control of the 2025 Dakar Rally after he won the eighth stage, to build a commanding advantage heading into the final four stages.
It was a magic Monday for South Africa as Lategan and Brett Cummings finished ahead of their Toyota Gazoo Racing teammates Guy Botterill and Dennis Murphy in Riyadh and have extended their overall lead.
Heading into Tuesday’s ninth of 12 stages, a 357km stetch of timed stages from Riyadh to Haradh, Lategan takes a 5min 41sec gap over Yazeed Al-Rajhi.
The Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa duo have lead the Dakar since stage two.
The 30-year-old Lategan, in his fourth Dakar outing, covered the 487km special between Al-Duwadimi and Riyadh in 4hr 51min 54sec. Despite a two-minute penalty for speeding on the stage, Lategan finished the day’s driving 1min 47sec ahead of Botterill.
There was one canyon where everybody was getting lost,” said Lategan. “And we were a little bit nervous going into there because you see cars coming from the front and cars coming from all angles out the mountains.
“At the end, we went all the way out the canyon and then finally found our way. So we hopped from, let’s say, seventh or so on the road all the way to first. And then we were opening for quite a while.
“And then we made one or two small navigation errors. We had a puncture earlier on. So, not a bad day. We’re happy to have found that one waypoint, but not the perfect day.”