Peter Lyon
January 4, 2026
In Saturday’s Prologue, factory Ford driver Mattias Ekstrom defeated teammate Mitch Guthrie to win first blood in the 2026 Dakar Rally.
With some 72 cars entered in the Ultimate class, 8 cars in the Stock class, 75 cars in the Dakar Classic class and over 400 vehicles in total, including motorcycles and trucks, this year’s rally is taking place inside Saudi Arabia but still called the Dakar.
On January 3, right about the same time as America started bombing Venezuela, the 48th edition of Dakar officially got underway with 400 plus competitors starting from Yanbu. There were very few gaps at the front of the race because only 22 km of the 95 km circuit around the Saudi Arabian harbour city of Yanbu were timed in the prologue.
Two-time DTM champion Ekstrom posted the fastest time of the day in 10m 48.7s while driving the V8-powered Ford Raptor. After winning with Audi in 2023 and 2024, this was his third Prologue victory in five appearances.
As the American brand makes its second factory participation in the Dakar, Guthrie finished eight seconds behind Ekstrom in second, sealing a 1-2 victory for Ford.
Mini was Ford’s closest rival in the Prologue, with X-raid driver Guillaume de Mevius finishing just two tenths behind Guthrie in third. Mathieu Baumel, a navigator who has won four Dakars and is back in competition after losing his right leg in an accident in January of last year, accompanied De Mevius once more.
Nasser Al-Attiyah of Dakar led the way for Dacia, a brand owned by the Renault Group, in fourth place, three tenths behind De Mevius.
Seth Quintero, a factory Toyota driver, finished fifth. Yazeed Al-Rajhi, the current champion, trailed him closely in sixth position with his Overdrive-powered Hilux.
Polish driver Eryk Goczal was a surprise seventh in EnergyLand’s customer Toyota, matching Quintero and Al-Rajhi’s times exactly.
After leaving the 2025 race early, rally legend Carlos Sainz Sr. returned to the Dakar on Tuesday, leading his Ford to seventh place, 15 seconds behind teammate Ekstrom.
Saood Variawa of Toyota South Africa completed the top 10, while Matthieu Serradori, the underdog Century brand, finished ninth.
Sebastien Loeb, a nine-time World Rally champion, started Dakar in 17th place, more than 30 seconds behind the leader. Lucas Moraes, a teammate who joined Dacia this year after winning the 2025 World Rally-Raid Championship with Toyota, trailed him closely.
CARLIST THOUGHTS
For the record, the Dakar Rally started as the Paris to Dakar, from in France to Africa from 1978-2008, moved to South America (various countries like Peru, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay), and from 2009-2019 due to security concerns, has since been held in Saudi Arabia from 2020 to the present, though its exact route within these regions changes annually.
