2026 Dakar Rally: KTM stay in control after Stage 8 but leadership changes hands

The leadership of the RallyGP category in the 2026 Dakar Rally has changed hands, but KTM stays in control after Stage 8.

Luciano Benavides took his third stage win of the rally on Stage 8, and second in succession, to take the lead overall for the first time on this year’s Dakar.

The Argentinian’s advantage is 10 seconds over his Red Bull KTM teammate Daniel Sanders, who was second-fastest through the eighth stage.

Ricky Brabec remains third after Stage 8 and is now 4’47’’ off the lead having been five minutes slower than Benavides on Monday’s stage.

In the past few stages the two KTM riders and Brabec have firmly established themselves as the strongest and most consistent riders this year, 

Toscha Schareina remains competitive and was fourth-fastest today, but five minutes slower than Brabec and almost 10 minutes off the winning time of Benavides. The Spaniard remains fourth overall and now over 20 minutes off the lead, half of that being the penalty time he picked up late last week.

After his best showing of the rally so far on Sunday, Adrien van Beveren was again in the top-five stage times on Monday, a couple of minutes slower than Schareina. He remains seventh overall, just over 17 minutes behind Nacho Cornejo in sixth, who is in turn now almost five minutes behind Skyler Howes in fifth.

Ross Branch, Preston Campbell, and Toni Mulec continue to round out the overall top-10 for the bikes.

Edgar Canet continued from his recovery from major time loss at the end of last week. He was seventh-fastest on the stage and is now 44th overall.

In the Ultimate class, there is little change at the very top: Nasser Al-Attiyah continues to lead from Mattias Ekstrom, and the gap between them is now precisely four minutes.

After losing his podium position to Nani Roma on Sunday, Henk Lategan got back into third place, past the Spaniard, on Monday.

Carlos Sainz remains fifth in the third of the Fords, 10’39’’ off the lead, and seven minutes ahead of Sebastien Loeb who stays sixth after Stage 8.

Seventh-placed Mitch Guthrie is still relatively in-touch, 23’00’’ off the lead, as is Loic Serradori in eighth and 25’04 behind Al-Attiyah.

There were only very small differences in stage times today, with the top-10 Ultimate runners covered by only 3’48’’ over the 483km of special, and less than one minute covering the top-four.

At the top of the stage times was Saood Variawa, the 20-year-old from South Africa taking his first stage win.

Tuesday’s Stage 9 will be the first half of this year’s second Marathon Stage, starting in Wadi Ad Dawasir on a route of almost 550km.