Aussie Sanders surrenders lead in Dakar desert defence

Now in his ninth Dakar, it is the first time Benavides has been the overall motorbike leader in the race. His brother Kevin won the race in 2021 and 2023.

Benavides took the eighth stage, the longest of the race, by four minutes, 50 seconds over KTM teammate Sanders.

Sanders and third-placed Ricky Brabec were quicker in real time on a course through Saudi Arabia's dunes, valleys and rocks, but the seven-plus minutes in time bonuses for opening up enabled him to take the stage, and lead.

"In these conditions I can read the roadbook super, super good and make good decisions," Benavides said.

"It was dusty, sandy, the wind was really hard, like hail out there and really hard to see the last part," said Sanders of the 483km loop around the southern city of Wadi Ad Dawasir.

"The last two days have been super high speed," he said. "Today was a little bit easier for the navigation, but it was super hard to make up time on Luciano opening.

"He did a really good job. Starting from fourth was really hard to make up time and any mistake you made meant there was no chance to catch the front.

"Hopefully it won't be as fast and easy as this again tomorrow. The first week was so difficult. Yesterday, you could see the faster pace coming and some easier navigation, then today was just incredibly fast again".

In the car category Saood Variawa won the stage in a ‍South African one-two with Henk Lategan as Nasser Al-Attiyah has his overall lead cut to four minutes.

Dacia Sandriders driver Al-Attiyah finished fifth, 1:16 behind 20-year-old Toyota SA driver ⁠Variawa, who beat Lategan by three seconds.

The Qatari's closest rival Mattias Ekstrom was third for Ford in the longest stage of the 48th edition of the rally.

"We made a little mistake close to the finish and we lost around three minutes," said Al-Attiyah, a five times Dakar winner. "But OK, I am really happy from the performance."

With AP, Reuters

Australian Associated Press