Dakar 2025: Sensational stage! Benavides wins despite penalties!

Dakar 2025: Sensational stage! Benavides wins despite penalties!

At the legendary Dakar Rally 2025 in Saudi Arabia, KTM driver Luciano Benavides triumphantly dominated the fifth stage. This stage, which spanned 588 kilometers from Al-'Ula to Ha'il, was marked by exciting competition for the lead, with Benavides ultimately taking first place. He finished the stage after 4 hours and 53 minutes, leaving Adrien van Beveren (Honda) behind, who lost important seconds due to a two-minute time penalty. Thanks to his strong performance, Benavides moves up to sixth place in the overall standings and shortens the gap to overall leader Daniel Sanders to 24:05 minutes.

However, Daniel Sanders, the Australian and leading driver to date, was caught with an 8-minute time penalty for speeding at a speed limit. This setback reduced his lead over Spanish Honda rider Tosha Schareina to just 7 minutes and 02 seconds Small newspaper reported. The Upper Austrian Tobias Ebster crossed the finish line in 18th place and remains in 13th place in the overall ranking, 1:18:23 hours behind the leader.

Race results and overall standings