Dakar: De Mevius won the stage, Sainz came second

The first stage of the multi-day Dakar Rally was won by the team of Belgian Guillaume de Mevius, driving a Toyota Hilux racing SUV from the Overdrive Racing team. He and his partner Xavier Panseri completed the distance of 541 km in 4 hours, 35 minutes and 59 seconds.

Carlos Sainz, the Audi Sport driver, lost to him in less than two minutes: after a failed performance in yesterday’s prologue, he promised to make amends and has probably already started implementing this plan.

But so far this year’s race, even though it has only just started, is dominated by Toyota SUVs: according to the results of today’s stage, six cars of this brand are in the top ten. Russian racers also drive such a car prepared by Overdrive Racing in the Ultimate class: Denis Krotov (driving under the flag of Kazakhstan) and his co-driver Konstantin Zhiltsov crossed the finish line in 13th.

And for example Sebastien Loeb, who is of course one of the favorites, only showed the twentieth result. Nasser Al-Attiyah, his teammate, winner of last year’s Dakar and now also racing a Prodrive Hunter SUV, did not make the top twenty at all.

However, it is logical to assume that in the first stages of the supermarathon, these experienced rally raid masters simply take care of their equipment and are in no hurry to show all their cards.

Among the motorcycle racers, Ross Branch from Botswana was the fastest: he is riding in Dakar for the fifth year and has won stages more than once. As in 2023, he rides an Indian-made Hero 450 Rally motorcycle.

In the ATV class, Brazilian Marcelo Medeiros stood out, which is not surprising: last year he won four stages and today he again reached the finish first on his Yamaha Raptor 700, two and a half minutes ahead of his neighbor. pursuer.

In the T3 (light SUV) category, which this year is called Challenger, the young Polish driver Erik Gochal won with a Dutch-made Taurus T3 Max. Interestingly, second place in the stage was taken by his uncle Michal Gochal, also an Energylandia Rally Team driver, losing to his cousin by just 19 seconds.

But the most interesting thing is that Marek Gochal, Eric’s father, came third! He also plays for the same team and drives the same Taurus T3 Max.

In the T4 class (also light SUVs, but not as heavily modified as the T3) the leader is Dakar debutant, the Brazilian Rodrigo Varela.

In the truck class, the final ranking has not yet been announced, but it is known that shortly before the finish of the stage, the Dutch team of Janus van Casteren, an experienced driver racing on an Iveco prepared by Team De Rooy, was in the lead. .

Tomorrow the participants of the rally raid have a long day: in the second stage of the marathon they have to cover 655 km, of which 463 km are fast special stages.