2026 Dakar Rally: Down to the Wire
The running of the 2026 Dakar Rally has completed and victors decided. KTM’s Luciano Benavides is the winner of a hard-fought race that was one for the record books. The rally came down to the final stretch, with Benavides taking the top spot on the podium over Honda’s Ricky Brabec by only a two-second margin.
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To win the Dakar Rally, you not only have to be fast, but you must also be smart. Brabec demonstrated that he was both of those things. He didn’t spend much time at the front of the standings, but it wasn’t because he couldn’t. Brabec was playing a strategy game the whole race, trying not to get too far in front of KTM’s riders so that they couldn’t claw back massive amounts of time the next day. In interviews, Brabec was open about the games going on, and it looked like it might work out at the start of Stage 13. He was more than three minutes ahead of Benavides, and with about 165 miles of timed special stage left, Brabec looked unbeatable.
But Benavides said he’d push hard regardless, and with four miles left on the final stage, Brabec made a navigation error that cost him a fistful of time. That was enough for Benavides to manage the win by a whisker, denying Brabec his third Dakar championship. And not only did Luciano Benavides win his first-ever Dakar Rally after years of Top 10 finishes, it also left him and his brother Kevin (a two-time winner) as the only brothers to both take Dakar titles.
KTM team management must be stoked to grab victory from the jaws of defeat, because it looked like this was a year that would have left them wondering what could have been. Daniel Sanders, winner of the 2025 W2RC rally-raid series, looked like he was the man to beat in the early stages. On Stage 10, that all changed when he crashed badly and broke his collarbone, among other injuries. That ruled him out of the win; there was no way he could ride at the pace required. Incredibly, Sanders kept on pushing, saying he would only retire from the race if doctors forced him out. Finishing fifth place overall demonstrated remarkable determination and commitment.
Sanders’ teammate Edgar Canet also looked a contender for victory early-on, but he hit a string of bad luck, including a roached tire on the first marathon stage that saw him putting down miles on his rear rim. He stayed in the race thanks to dubiously legal assistance from unknown sources, but the penalties accrued meant he couldn’t win either. KTM couldn’t have won without everything going right for Benavides, and lucky for them, it did.
Looking at the Top 10, Honda’s team certainly performed the best in the race. After Brabec in second overall, Tosha Schareina finished third. American rider Skyler Howes was fourth; Veteran French rider Adrien Van Beveren was sixth for Big Red. And American rider Preston Campbell—son of desert racing legend Johnny Campbell—bagged ninth in the overall bike category for Honda, second in the Rally2 class, with teammate Martim Ventura in 10th overall, third in Rally2.
We’re at the point where younger guys like this are making themselves known just as cagey veterans like Toby Price and Sam Sunderland have moved on to car racing. And it’s not just newer riders who are here to make a lasting impact. Several newish teams, like Hero Motorsports (two riders in the Top 10), Hoto (a Chinese manufacturer, with American Mason Klein riding their bike to 14th) and Kove (the best-known Chinese team at Dakar) are all learning the rally raid game. With the Chinese manufacturers, a little bit of luck will see them with a Top 10 finish soon.
That means less room for some of the classic Euro teams, like Sherco’s factory squad. The French off-road manufacturer had terrible luck this year, with Harith Noah crashing out in Stage 1 and Lorenzo Santolino crashing out in Stage 2. Bradley Cox put in a great show as their remaining rider, grabbing 12th overall, but it’s going to be harder for the guys on these teams as they’re competing not just with the front-runners from KTM, Honda and the BAS World privateer team (consistently strong). Now they must also face pressure from India-based and China-based teams. The same goes for Slovakia-based Slovnaft Racing, home of Stefan Svitko, consistently one of Dakar’s top privateers. Svitko crashed out in Stage 10, and from his hospital bed, you can imagine that he watched the crop of youngsters and realized he has a much harder fight ahead next year.
But nothing is constant, and watching the Rally2 class (won by Toni Mulec, on a BAS World bike), you can tell that the race is just going to get faster and fiercer in the years to come.
And what about the Original by Motul class, formerly known as Malle Moto, where competitors must service their bikes themselves, with no help from the team? Long seen as the toughest category at Dakar, this class was won by Benjamin Melot. There were 25 finishers in this class, which is a lot when you consider how tough it is; the best-known name here was James Hillier, star of the Isle of Man TT and other street-circuit races. Unfortunately, Hilly crashed out early-on and we didn’t get to see if he was able to press for the front.
Always packed with excitement and stories of hardship and determination, this year’s Dakar Rally did not disappoint. Find the fall of the results and final rankings here.
Zac Kurylyk
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