Who finished where as Dakar Rally moved north for stage 2?
6th January 2026The Dakar Rally started to make its way north as the cross-country event took on stage two, with rocky and stony terrain facing the crews.
Feature image credit: Kin Marcin / Red Bull Content Pool
400km faced the teams and crews on Monday as the Dakar began its northern adventure towards Al Ula. The teams faced harsh terrain and mountainous climbs as they battled their way out of Yanub.
The rocky and stony terrain made it likely for punctures to occur; one such victim of this was Guy Botterill and Oriol Mena, of Toyota Gazoo Racing, who suffered a blowout on the stage. They finished the stage in 40th, dropping to 25th overall.
So, tackled the challenges well and found themselves leading after stage 2?
Bikes
The top three remained unchanged after stage two, with a slight change in the order. Red Bull KTM Factory remained in the lead of the classification, but Daniel Sanders took over as the class leader. Saunders’ teammate, Edgar Canet, dropped back to second place, one minute and 35 seconds behind.
USA’s Ricky Brabec, of Monster Energy Honda, remained in third, losing just a small amount of time compared to the two leading Red Bull riders. The American finished the stage two minutes and 18 seconds behind Saunders.
This left Brabec’s teammate, Tosha Schareina, and Ross Branch, of Hero Motosports, to complete the top five in fourth and fifth, respectively.
Car
The Dacia Sandriders came out on top and took over as class leaders, led by Nasser Al-Attiyah/Fabian Lurquin, followed by stage winners Seth Quintero/Andrew Short of Toyota Gazoo Racing W2RC.
Guillaume de Mevius/Mathieu Baumel of X-Raid Team rounded out the top three, one minute and nine seconds adrift of Al-Attiyah’s best time.
Toyota made a strong showing on the stage rankings, taking four of the top five stage times. Quintero/Short took the top honours on Stage 2, followed by Henk Lategan/Brett Cummings, Toby Price/Armand Monleon and Joao Ferreira/Filipe Palmeiro, who took second, fourth and fifth respectively.
Yazeed Al Rajhi/Timo Gottschalk of Overdrive Racing slipped in amongst the Toyota crews, in third on the stage.
Trucks
Eurol RallySport were the class leaders, crewed by all-Dutch teammates Mitchel van den Brink, Bart van Heun and Jarno van de Pol with an elapsed time of eight hours, 29 minutes and 58 seconds.
MM Technology’s all-Czech crew of Martin Macik, Frantisek Tomasek and David Svanda finished the day in third, sandwiching the multi-national Nordis Team in second, crewed by Vaidotas Zala, Paulo Fiuza and Max van Grol.
MM Technology finished the stage in third, finishing a minute behind the stage winners of Kuipers Jongbloed Hybrid, crewed by Gert Huzink, Hugo Kupper and Mario Kress. Similarly to the general rankings, the Nordis Team occupied second place in the stage standings.
On Tuesday, the crews will remain in the Al Ula region, tackling a staggering 422km of terrain.
Read more Rally Raid here:
- How did stage one finish at the Dakar Rally?
- How did the Dakar Rally prologue unfold?
- Dakar Rally 2026: Schedule and route for Saudi Arabian event
- Dakar 2025: Problematic roadbook note affects crews
- Dakar 2025 Heads Al Duwadimi as the rally resumes and Branch airlifted
- Dakar Rally 2025: Stage 5 completed as crews arrive in Hail to complete week 1
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Hi, I’m Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion.
I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I’ve loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.
Kamron Kent
Hi, I'm Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion. I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I've loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.
