2026 Dakar Rally: Daniel Sanders regains the lead as second Marathon begins

The ninth stage of the 2026 Dakar Rally opened the second Marathon of this year’s edition of the event, and saw Daniel Sanders regain the RallyGP lead.

Sanders was second-fastest on Stage 9, 4’35’’ behind Honda’s Toscha Schareina who took his first stage win of the second week of this year's Dakar.

Michael Docherty made a somewhat surprising appearance in the top-three, the Bas World KTM rider having withdrawn from a stage last week before rejoining under Rally 2 rules. He was 4’50’’ off Schareina’s time and almost 90 seconds ahead of Ricky Brabec in fourth

The American dropped just under two minutes to Sanders, but regained second position thanks to Luciano Benavides finishing seven minutes off the stage win and down in ninth.

Benavides is now third overall and 7’05’’ behind Sanders, while Brabec is 6’39’’ behind the Australian.

Schareina’s stage win has brought him more firmly back into contention for at least the podium, if not the win. The Spanish rider is now 15’28’’ of the rally lead despite his 10 minutes of penalty time.

Skyler Howes rounds out the top-five for Honda. He’s now over 20 minutes clear of Nacho Cornejo who remains sixth, now only three minutes ahead of Adrien van Beveren in seventh.

Nani Roma now leads the Ultimate class, Nasser Al-Attiyah losing the top spot for the first time since the end of last week.

Roma was only eighth-fastest on the stage, 15 minutes behind the surprise winner Eryk Gozcal in the Energylandia Toyota. The Energylandia team also scored a 1-2 with Michal Gozcal second-fastest and 7’45’’ slower than Eryk.

Al-Attiyah was down in 17th on the stage rankings, 26 minutes behind Gozcal. Things weren’t much better for former leader Henk Lategan, one place and just over a minute ahead of Al-Attiyah. The Qatari remains third-fastest overall and is still firmly in victory contention, only 1’10’’ behind Roma, while Lategan is now fourth and six minutes off the lead.

Carlos Sainz’s seventh-fastest stage time leaves him second overall now. 57 seconds separate Sainz from his compatriot and Ford teammate.

Mattias Ekstrom, who was long the leading Ford driver, is now fifth overall 11’19’’ off the lead, while Sebastien Loeb fell backwards on Tuesday’s stage and is now over 20 minutes off the lead again.

Former RallyGP winner Toby Price continued his impressive form of late, finishing third on the stage and rising to seventh in the overall standings. The Australian is now 26 minutes off the lead and just under six minutes behind Loeb.

Tomorrow’s Stage 10 will conclude the second Marathon Stage of the rally over a route of just over 400km, 371 of which are special.