Ford drivers Mitch Guthrie, new leader of the Dakar, and Martin Prokop, took the first two places in the 3rd stage. Sébastien Loeb, who suffered two punctures, finished 25 minutes behind the leader.
Smiles for Ford, grimaces for Sébastien Loeb and the favorites. The Ford team saw its drivers Mitch Guthrie and Martin Prokop take the first two places in the 3rd stage of the Dakar 2026, contested this Tuesday on the long 736 km kilometer loop traced around Alula, in the north-west of Saudi Arabia. For their part, all the other favorites, including Sébastien Loeb, had a very complicated day.
This stage was an obstacle course for all the drivers, as much for its duration – 421 kilometers for today’s special – as for its route, with stony tracks, numerous portions of sand, canyons and massive plateaus, combined at times with navigation difficulties.
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Ford’s perfect shot
Despite having struggled since the start of the event, the Ford drivers suddenly woke up this Tuesday. Taking advantage of their starting position, many of them shone: the Swede Mattias Ekström, the Spaniard Nani Roma, the Czech Martin Prokop (second in the stage) and obviously the winner of the day, the American Mitch Guthrie, who won after 4h04 of racing, thus pocketing his first stage victory on the Dakar. South African Guy Botterill (Toyota) completes the podium.
“This is my first victory in Ultimate, reacted Mitch Githrie in comments transcribed by L’Equipe. I really don’t know what to say. I wasn’t expecting that, we had a clean day starting from behind, Kellon was a killer in navigation, there were some tricky spots. No punctures, the car was perfect, we didn’t stop moving forward. It’s the best day of all my days.”. Thanks to this victory, the American driver takes first place in the general classification of the 2026 Dakar. A perfect day for him and his team.
Favorites in slow motion, Sébastien Loeb stopped for a long time
The stage, however, was much more difficult for several favorites. The difficult conditions prevented many of them from expressing themselves as they would have liked. Thus, several big names in the field are now far behind Mitch Guthrie in the general classification: the former leader of the event Nasser al-Attiyah (Dacia) is now more than 22 minutes behind and Seth Quintero (Toyota) more than 1h15 behind.
For his part, Sébastien Loeb (Dacia), who suffered two punctures, completed his difficult journey more than 25 minutes behind the winner of the day. As for Guillaume de Mévius and Mathieu Baumel (Mini X-Raid), both facing several punctures, they should lose more than 1h30. The best Frenchman of the day was Mathieu Serradori (Century Racing), who finished in the Top 10, more than seven minutes behind the leader.
“Once again, it was a contest of slowness to avoid puncturing. It was impossible to ride, we drove at 20% capacity to avoid punctures. It was really annoying, launched Sébastien Loeb at the microphone of the L’Équipe channel. We had two punctures in 100 km, after which I didn’t have a spare wheel left to get to the end. So, without a spare wheel, the only chance of finishing is to go slowly. Everyone had flat tires, there were cars stopped everywhere. It was a contest of punctures and slow speeds at 30 km/h one behind the other. But in short, we are at the end!”
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Now 12th in the general classification, almost 17 minutes behind the new leader, Sébastien Loeb was very upset. The next stage is planned for Wednesday: it will be the marathon stage of the 2026 edition with a 417 km loop with departure and arrival in Alula.
