{"id":7823,"date":"2026-01-11T09:23:58","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T02:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=7823"},"modified":"2026-01-11T09:23:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T02:23:59","slug":"sanders-puts-number-1-in-the-top-slot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/sanders-puts-number-1-in-the-top-slot\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanders puts number 1 in the top slot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Two consecutive flashes of brilliance from a RallyGP newcomer marked the start of the 48th<\/sup>\u00a0edition of the Dakar, as\u00a0Edgar Canet\u00a0(Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) opened up his account at the elite level with victories in the prologue and stage\u00a01.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, a wrecked tyre in the marathon-refuge stage relegated the Spaniard to more than ten hours down in the overall. The top\u00a04 of the 2025\u00a0season in the RallyGP class have never fallen lower than sixth.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Sanders\u00a0and\u00a0Ricky Brabec\u00a0(Monster Energy Honda\u00a0HRC) have been on the overall podium every day since the show hit the road in Yanbu and naturally hold the top spots in Riyadh. The reigning world champion is a mere 45\u00a0seconds ahead of the American.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Chucky”\u00a0would have reached the rest day with a substantially wider margin if he had not been handed down a 6-minute penalty for speeding at the beginning of stage\u00a06.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tosha Schareina\u00a0(Monster Energy Honda\u00a0HRC) also made a blunder in the opening week. Much like the Australian, the Spaniard had barely had time to hop onto his saddle when he messed up, forgetting to go through the flags marking the exit from the bivouac-refuge. This oversight cost him 10\u00a0minutes and left him just outside the podium (+11\u203256\u2033).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luciano Benavides\u00a0(Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) is slotted ahead of him (+10\u203215\u2033). As it stands, KTM and Honda have each played two of their ace cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nacho Cornejo\u00a0has placed his Hero in fifth place, about half an hour off the pace. His wingman\u00a0Ross Branch\u00a0got off to a solid start, but he had to slow down to avoid burning through his rear foam before the finish line of the marathon stage. The Motswana is now over an hour and a half from the lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at the stats,\u00a0Sanders\u00a0has added to his existing record of stage victories, bringing his W2RC tally to 25.\u00a0Schareina\u00a0has picked up two and now has 21 to his name.\u00a0Benavides\u00a0(16) and\u00a0Brabec\u00a0(12) have added one apiece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RALLY2: CAMPBELL STEPS OUT OF THE SHADOW OF HIS FATHER<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rally2 title holder,\u00a0Edgar Canet, has moved up to the premier division, clearing the way for his former rivals.\u00a0Harith Noah\u00a0(Sherco TVS Factory Rally) and\u00a0Tobias Ebster\u00a0(Hero MotoSports) have quit the race due to injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neels Theric\u00a0(Kove Factory Racing) has won two stages, but only after his overall dreams went up in smoke as he literally pushed his motorbike to the finish line of the prologue.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Docherty\u00a0(BAS World\u00a0KTM) seemed destined to become the new sheriff in town after claiming four stage wins (32 in total, a record in Rally2), but a broken rim forced the South African to sit out the second day of the marathon stage.\u00a0Martim Ventura\u00a0(Monster Energy Honda\u00a0HRC), the only rider close to his level (one stage win), had earlier lost buckets of time repairing his motorbike after hitting a stone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His teammate and fellow Dakar rookie\u00a0Preston Campbell, the son of the US Baja legend\u00a0Johnny Campbell, steered clear of trouble and now holds the Rally2 lead ahead of the regulars\u00a0Toni Mulec\u00a0(BAS World KTM, +16\u203242\u2033) and\u00a0Konrad D\u0105browski\u00a0(Duust Rally, +23\u203229\u2033).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two consecutive flashes of brilliance from a RallyGP newcomer marked the start of the 48th\u00a0edition of the Dakar,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[311,310],"class_list":["post-7823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-motorsports","tag-rally"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dakar-rally.jpeg_compressed.jpg",2002,1114,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dakar-rally.jpeg_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dakar-rally.jpeg_compressed-300x167.jpg",300,167,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dakar-rally.jpeg_compressed-768x427.jpg",640,356,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dakar-rally.jpeg_compressed-1024x570.jpg",640,356,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dakar-rally.jpeg_compressed-1536x855.jpg",1536,855,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dakar-rally.jpeg_compressed.jpg",2002,1114,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dakar-rally.jpeg_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dakar-rally.jpeg_compressed-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dakar-rally.jpeg_compressed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7825,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7823\/revisions\/7825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}