Dramatic scenes unfolded on stage seven of the 2025 Dakar Rally as its organisers, the Amaury Sport Organisation, admitted to an error in the road book for Sunday, and eliminated a 20 km section of the route that included a waypoint that many of the competitors missed. Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Lucas Moraes was the fastest finisher on the day.
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“I was so mad with myself about some small mistakes that I made earlier this rally and you know, if we want to be a champion of this rally we have to really pay attention to the details. Today, we had a good road position, so we decided to go on full attack. The car was handling so nicely and it’s such a pleasure to drive it. Yeah, it was a good day.”
Despite the high-profile withdrawal of defending Champion Carlos Sainz, the Ford M-Sport team has been putting up a strong fight, with consistent top finishes. Mattias Ekström and Mitch Guthrie brought their Raptors in second and third fastest on Sunday. Qatari five-time Dakar champion Nasser Al-Attiyah brought his Dacia Sandrider home in fourth and Moraes’ Toyota Gazoo teammate Seth Quintero was fifth fastest.
The waypoint issue was addressed by the organisers (see video below), who have tried to address the matter as fairly as possible, but it has no doubt left a sour taste in the mouths of the competitors who went through the arduous effort of finding the near-impossible section and actually completing it. The driver who has suffered the most loss is South Africa’s Henk Lategan, who has put on a flawless Dakar drive so far and had an eight-minute lead reduced to just 21 seconds.
“There was one area where everybody was getting lost. Brett and I also got lost for quite a few minutes, but then we decided to go all the way back. We went really far back and then followed the road book again and managed to find the way and find the waypoint first. So, we overtook all of the cars that started in front of us in the stage, and we were opening the stage for most of the way. And now, I’m not sure what’s happening, but it looks like they took out a piece of the stage. If that’s going to be the case, we’re going to lose out. We did a good job in finding the waypoint first, and now it looks like they’re basically applying a penalty to the people that managed to find the waypoint, because then after that, we had to open. So, it will be really unfair, but let’s see. Maybe they’ll fix it,” Lategan said.
Overall rankings
- Henk Lategan (Toyota Gazoo Racing) 37h 13m 08s
- Yazeed Al Rajhi (Overdrive Racing) 37h 13m 29s
- Mattias Ekström (Ford M-Sport) 37h 23m 33s
- Nasser Al-Attiyah (The Dacia Sandriders) 37h 35m 05s
- Mitch Guthrie (Ford M-Sport) 37h 53m 09s
- Mathieu Serradori (Century Racing Factory Team) 38h 07m 28s
- Juan Cruz Yacopini (Overdrive Racing) 38h 26m 13s
- Seth Quintero (Toyota Gazoo Racing) 38h 41m 40s
- Joao Ferreria (X-raid Mini JCW Team) 39h 11m 33s
- Brian Baragwanath (Century Racing Factory Team) 39h 20m 46s
