FILE PHOTO: Rallying - Dakar Rally - Stage 8 - Al Duwadimi to Riyadh - Saudi Arabia - January 13, 2025 Overdrive Racing's Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk in action REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo
RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's local hero Yazeed Al-Rajhi is in the overall lead for the first time at this year's Dakar Rally after finishing third in stage nine on Tuesday, taking over from Henk Lategan who suffered two punctures.
Al-Rajhi, of the Toyota Overdrive Racing team, finished just over three minutes behind five-times Dakar winner Qatar's Nasser Al-Attiyah who won the 357km stage between Riyadh and Haradh, with South Africa's Lategan down in 11th place.
Lategan, who held the overall lead since stage two, had his lead whittled down to 21 seconds after Sunday's stage, but a win on Monday had pushed his advantage back out to five minutes and 41 seconds.
Al-Rajhi finished almost 13 minutes ahead of Lategan and with three stages left, his overall advantage is seven minutes and nine seconds, after Lategan's difficult day.
"It's a bit of disaster to be honest. It was really a mess, about 13km in and we got lost. We thought we missed the waypoint but we actually had it," Lategan said.
"It wasn't great and when we got lost we got one puncture and then towards the end we got another one and the wheel is actually flat.
"So, it was a messy, messy, messy day for us but it's not the end of the world, we're still in it. But it's a bit of a disappointing day."
Guy Botterill, who had pushed hard for a stage win on Monday before finishing second behind fellow South African Lategan, is out of the race after an accident 272km into Tuesday's stage.
Argentina's Luciano Benavides triumphed for the second successive stage in the motorcycle category, with Frenchman Adrien Van Beveren again coming in second, while overall leader Daniel Sanders finished third to extend the gap at the top.
Australian Sanders gained over three minutes on his closest rival Tosha Schareina, after the Spaniard came seventh, and now holds a lead of 14 minutes and 45 seconds.
Wednesday's stage 10 takes the race from Haradh to Shubaytah.
(Reporting by Trevor Stynes; Editing by Christian Radnedge)
