Dakar 2025: Quintero Awarded Stage 1 Win

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Seth Quintero was awarded 90 seconds off after stopping to help a fellow competitor.

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Gutierrez's Dacia was fifth fastest on stage 1.

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Defending champion Carlos Sainz was eighth fastest on stage 1.

Motorsport

▪ Posted January 4, 2025

By: Kyle Kock

Although French duo Guerlain Chicherit and Alex Winocq finished Saturday’s first stage of the 2025 Dakar Rally as the provisional winners in their X-Raid Mini JCW, Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Seth Quintero and Dennis Zenz were handed the victory after stopping to help fellow participants on the Bisha loop stage.

Dakar 2025 — Seth Quintero was awarded 90 seconds off after stopping to help a fellow competitor. Source: Red Bull

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The American and German witnessed Laia Sanz and her co-driver Maurizio Gerini crashing out and stopped to assist them. With sportsmanship a vital part of the Dakar legacy, the event organisers Amaury Sport Organisation awarded the Toyota Gazoo Racing crew 95 seconds off their stage time. The result was that they finished 55 seconds ahead of the fastest X-Raid Mini of the day.

“It’s always good to get the first one done. We got past quite a few cars, then we saw Laia Sanz had a big crash, so we stopped there and did what we could to help,” Quintero said.

South African Saood Variawa flew to a Dakar stage podium as the third fastest driver of the day, in conditions that challenged even the most hardened rally raid competitors. This is the 19-year-old’s best result on a Dakar stage after managing fifth fastest on stage 11 of last year’s Dakar Rally – his debut.

With her debut in the Ultimate Class, Cristina Gutierrez shone in her Dacia Sandrider, finishing fifth-fastest on Saturday. Fellow Spaniard and defending Dakar champion Carlos Sainz managed the eighth-fastest time today in his M-Sport Ford Raptor. Sunday is the start of a 48-hour chrono stage, a 967 km special in which competitors will have to bivouac with no assistance from their teams overnight and cover a total of 1 058 km.