DAKAR 2025

Nani Roma and Cristina Gutiérrez accompany Sainz to the abyss

It is written that the Dakar 2025 will not speak Spanish. Only in this way can we explain the debacle that has devastated the options of the three Spanish kings (and queens) once the dreaded 48-hour stage was completed.

The triumph in the 'queen stage' of the Dakar has been taken by the Saudi Yazeed Al-Rajhi, who has fought an interesting battle during the almost 11 hours of driving with the also Arab Nasser Al-Attiyah, the great winner of the day. However... the new leader is the South African Henk Lategan (Toyota), who had initially made a superb third place, but benefited from a penalty on Al-Attiyah (four minutes for speeding).

Coal for the Spanish...The night of Kings has not left rewards for ours. If yesterday Carlos Sainz left half of the Dakar behind (today he continued his ordeal with a diminished Ford Raptor), today the hopes of Cristina Gutiérrez and Pablo Moreno have completely ended (he was unable to complete the stage and arrived at the Bisha camp by road) and, barring a general debacle, also those of Nani Roma and Álex Haro, who was left in the lurch by his Ford today with mechanical problems.

Sainz/Cruz had another hellish stage, despite it being considerably shorter than yesterday (341 km). Although they were able to work on the car last night, the Raptor was damaged and there were crucial elements that could not be repaired. The one that most influenced the outcome of the day was the front windscreen. The Spanish couple had to do the whole stage without it, protected only by motorcycle goggles... which was another inconvenience.

As if that were not enough, they also had to start out with the handicap of only carrying one spare wheel, so they had to be extremely careful not to get a puncture, especially at the start of the day. In these conditions, it was only to be expected that the gap with which they finished yesterday (59 minutes) would increase. Initially, this gap was maintained at around 1 hour and 5 minutes, but before kilometre 933 he stopped again... and he reached the finish line with 1 hour and 33 minutes lost (in the general classification he is 1 hour and 28 behind Lategan.

The second Ford to give in was Nani Roma's (while Ekström and Guthrie rode without major problems), which stopped at kilometre 766 with serious mechanical problems (already in stage 1 he had a failure in the oil supply system, which they had already experienced before the Dakar and, in fact, in the last section yesterday he lost quite a bit of time, possibly already with complications). The Catalan will arrive late at the finish line, with several hours lost.

Yesterday's sacrifice by Cristina Gutiérrez has not been rewarded by fate. She and her co-driver-mechanic Pablo Moreno saved Loeb yesterday when the nine-time champion was devastated by mechanical problems in the rack of the : steering his Dacia. 'Seb' has been going flat out today, making up a lot of time on Al-Rajhi (yesterday he finished at 32:30 and today he finished at 14:58)

The Three Wise Men also left a good bag of coal for Isidre Esteve, who was riding in a fantastic 25th place in the stage when at kilometre 713 he had to stop due to mechanical problems with his Toyota.

Tomorrow, the Dakar 2025 will leave the Bisha camp for the first time to move towards Al Henakiyah, where the third stage will end, with 406 timed kilometres.

-Provisional classification of stage 2 in cars

Dakar 2025:

Yazeed Al-Rajhi (Toyota) 10h n54:54

Henk Lategan (Toyota) at 616

Nasser Al-Attiyah (Dacia) at 6:29

Juan Cruz Yacopini (Toyota) at 8:45

Mathieu Serradori (Century) at 9:59

Rokas Baciuska (Toyota) at 11:17

Sébastien Loeb (Dacia) 14:58

Mattias Ekström (Ford) at 15:42

Toby Price (Toyota) at 16:14

Benediktas Banagas (Ford) at 23:01

-General car classification, stage 2

Dakar 2025:

Henk Lategan (Toyota) - 15h 40:30

Yazeed Al-Rajhi (Toyota) at 4:45

Nasser Al-Attiyah (Dacia) at 11:14

Toby Price (Toyota) at 11:44

Mattias Ekström (Ford) at 13:16

Sébastien Loeb (Dacia) at 18:56

Lucas Moraes (Toyota) at 20:57

Mitch Guthrie (Ford) at 23:33

Mathieu Serradori (Century) at 23:45

Juan Cruz Yacopini (Toyota) at 23:57

Reporter: Enrique Naranjo