Belgian Guillaume De Mevius and Frenchman Mathieu Baumel clinched their first stage victory of the 2025 Dakar Rally, after trailing behind South Africans Guy Botteril and Dennis Murphy consistently on Saturday 11 January. Despite the onslaught of Nasser Al-Attiyah and Yazeed Al Rajhi, Henk Lategan still leads the rally outright.
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At the day’s first checkpoint at the 39 km mark, Botteril’s Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux was 23 seconds clear of the X-Raid Mini of De Mevius and 30 seconds ahead of Saudi Yazeed Al Rajhi’s Overdrive Racing Hilux. Botteril maintained a solid lead over the rest of the Dakar field until the 440 km mark, where the Chevrolet V8-powered MD Rallye Sport Prototype of Frenchman Simon Vitse blasted past for the next two checkpoints – until De Mevius took charge, that is.
“For now, we’re sitting at the top of the leaderboard. We had a good stage, finally! Our goal was to claw back some time and pick up points for the championship, so we gave it everything we had. My car still bears a few scars from last week and today we did a bit of flying, but thankfully we didn’t hit anything. It’s not exactly my kind of terrain. On the sand, I can hold my own, but I know I’ve still got room to improve,” De Mevius said.
Botteril would eventually finish fourth fastest, behind De Mevius’ X-Raid teammate Joao Ferreira and Nasser Al-Attiyah – who is desperately trying to minimize Henk Lategan’s lead. Al Rajhi managed fifth fastest on Saturday and is just 7 minutes 16 seconds behind Lategan overall. Eighth-fastest on stage six, Swede Mattias Ekström still holds third overall.
“It was a little bit of a shaky start, to be honest. This morning getting into the first bit of dunes and especially these rough tracks in the dunes was a little bit tricky. We didn’t push really hard, we tried to be safe today, especially with the coming days and the bikes not opening the road, so we don’t really want to be close to the front,” said Lategan.
Stage six was also marked by the spectacular crash of Guerlain Chicherit and Alex Winocq, who at the time of writing have yet to withdraw outright. Just before the midway break, the French pair were running 10th overall. For Sunday’s stage seven, the car categories will no longer benefit from the tracks of the best motorcyclists as two and four-wheeled machines will be sent their separate ways for a 412 km special before meeting at the same bivouac as the night before.
Overall rankings
- Henk Lategan (Toyota Gazoo Racing) 23h 51m 36s
- Yazeed Al Rajhi (Overdrive Racing) 32h 58m 52s
- Mattias Ekström (Ford M-Sport) 33h 14m 03s
- Nasser Al-Attiyah (The Dacia Sandriders) 33h 22m 01s
- Mitch Guthrie (Ford M-Sport) 33h 41m 52s
- Mathieu Serradori (Century Racing Factory Team) 33h 48m 04s
- Juan Cruz Yacopini (Overdrive Racing) 34h 05m 54s
- Seth Quintero (Toyota Gazoo Racing) 34h 28m 13s
- Joao Ferreira (X-Raid Mini JCW Team) 34h 38m 49s
- Brian Baragwanath (Century Racing Factory Team) 34h 57m 06s
