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Honda’s Skyler Howes claimed his first-ever Dakar Rally stage victory with a commanding performance on one of the fastest tests of this year’s event.

With three stages remaining at the start of the day, riders faced a daunting total distance of 883 kilometres, including 346 km of flat-out timed racing.

While speed was the dominant factor on the rally’s quickest special stage, competitors still had to stay sharp through technical navigation and rocky terrain as the route wound north toward Al Henakiyah.

Howes has been steadily building momentum throughout his eighth Dakar appearance.

Although a tyre issue during last week’s first marathon stage ended his podium hopes, today’s rocky conditions played perfectly into the American’s strengths and the Honda rider took full advantage to secure a landmark stage win.

Despite the demanding task of opening the stage the next day, Howes was buoyed by his pace and will now look to challenge for a last-minute fourth place overall as the rally draws to a close.

French rider Adrien Van Beveren was tasked with opening the stage following his victory the day before and handled the navigation with confidence, ticking off checkpoints as the lead rider.

He was eventually caught by team-mate Ricky Brabec and the pair rode together for much of the stage.

Even so, Van Beveren earned valuable bonus time for running up front and finished second, just 21 seconds behind Howes, capping off a dramatic turnaround in fortunes during the second week of the rally.

Brabec began the day leading the overall standings, separated from Red Bull KTM rider Luciano Benavides by just 56 seconds.

On his favoured rocky terrain, the two-time Dakar champion pushed hard to extend his advantage, however, a calculated strategy saw him concede time late in the stage and despite gaining some bonus seconds after catching Van Beveren, Brabec dropped over a minute to Benavides at the finish.

As a result, he surrendered the overall lead by a slender 23 seconds.

With two stages remaining, his experience will be crucial as the fight goes down to the final kilometres.

Tosha Schareina endured a relatively quiet day by his standards.  The 2025 runner-up returned to the provisional podium yesterday and focused on consolidating his position.

Despite a small crash in the sand, he regrouped to finish fifth, four minutes off the lead, and now holds an advantage of more than eight minutes over Sanders in the battle for the final podium spot.

The penultimate day of this year’s Dakar will see riders cover 720 km as they make their return to Yanbu on Saudi Arabia’s western coast.

After 13 gruelling days of racing across spectacular terrain, the final push begins as competitors edge ever closer to the podium.

Photo courtesy Honda

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