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Overdrive Racing's Yazeed Al-Rajhi (right) and co-driver Timo Gottschalk celebrate their victory with Prince Khalid bin Sultan Al-Abdullah Al-Faisal, president of Saudi Automobile and Motorcycle Federation. Picture: REUTERS.
Overdrive Racing's Yazeed Al-Rajhi (right) and co-driver Timo Gottschalk celebrate their victory with Prince Khalid bin Sultan Al-Abdullah Al-Faisal, president of Saudi Automobile and Motorcycle Federation. Picture: REUTERS.

Saudi home hero Yazeed al-Rajhi, in a privately entered Overdrive Toyota Hilux, has won the 2025 Dakar Rally by just under four minutes from South African Henk Lategan in the Toyota Gazoo Hilux. 

Lategan, who had dropped to second in the penultimate stage, made up time in Friday's short 61km stage 12 but it was not enough to retake the lead. On home soil, Al-Rajhi became the first Saudi driver to win the Dakar overall. It is the fourth success for Toyota in the event after the titles won by Nasser al-Attiyah in 2019, 2022 and 2023.

Lategan, the leader of the gruelling off road race from stages 2 to 8, finished 3 minutes 57 seconds behind Al-Rajhi in the general rankings. The SA Toyota Hilux team had eight stage wins and four cars in the top 10 this year.

“I’m very, very happy to do it. It’s not an easy race, it’s the toughest one that I’ve done in 11 years,” Al-Rajhi said.

“For sure, we've made a lot of records today. The first Saudi driver to win and also in the last 25 years no private team beat a factory team but we did it this time.”

Five-times Dakar winner Al-Attiyah (Dacia Sandrider) finished second on the day to take the fourth place overall. Brazilian Lucas Moraes (Toyota Gazoo Hilux), who fell out of the championship race after losing nearly three hours on Saturday, won the stage finishing 33 seconds ahead of Qatar’s Al-Attiyah.

Sweden’s world RallyCross champion Mattias Ekstrom in the Ford Raptor was third in the final rankings ahead of al-Attiyah.

The motorcycle category was won by Australia’s Daniel Sanders on a KTM from Spain’s Tosha Schareina (Honda). Sanders was sixth in Friday's stage, which was won by SA's Michael Docherty (KTM).


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