2026 Dakar Rally Prologue results sees Red Bull KTM rider Edgar Canet become hte youngest-ever winner ahead of defending World Rally Raid Champion champion Daniel Sanders and Monster Energy Honda Team’s Ricky Brabec third.

Dakar 2026 Prologue in a nutshell: 

• Day one of the 48th edition of the Dakar Rally begins with 115 bikes – 15 in RallyGP and 100 in Rally2, including 26 Original by Motul competitors. The bikes officially start the race as always with the first rider away at 9:15 am (UTC+3) in reverse ranking order and at one-minute intervals (two-minutes for RallyGP) with the reigning champion, Daniel Sanders, last of all at 11:24.
• The 23km prologue course promised to be a little less open than we have seen in the past with riders needing to be “switched on from the start”. Staged 40km outside the bivouac, riders dropped quickly into a rocky and soft sandy canyon with a section marked “trial” just short of kilometre 10 and a tricky CAP bearing to watch out for at KM 17. Toni Bou, you’re up…
• First rider away, Tomas Gavardo, was quick out the blocks and set a benchmark no-one bettered until defending Original by Motul class champion, Emanuel Gyenes came along well over an hour into proceedings. It was impressive from Gavardo given he had no tracks to follow on the ground like every other rider behind him.
• Times over 12 and a half minutes were bettered convincingly as the top Rally 2 and finally RallyGP riders hit the track. Red Bull KTM’s Rally 2 champ Edgar Canet was the first to blitz the timesheets with an 11:32, putting him clear fastest. One after another of the main GP boys were behind the young Spaniard and failed to go better and (we think) this makes the Spaniard the youngest winner of a day at Dakar – though a prologue and a stage of dakar are obviously quite different ball games.
• Just three seconds behind his KTM teammate, Daniel Sanders says he was happy to get the Dakar ’26 show on the road clocking in second today.
• Best of the Honda riders, Ricky Brabec, came close for third place, five seconds adrift ahead of Luciano Benavides fourth for KTM (+11) and Ross Branch completing the top five for Hero MotoSports (+16).
• In Rally2 class Michael Docherty took the prologue and sixth scratch +19 seconds and 26 seconds ahead of Tobias Ebster with Konrad Dabrowski third ahead of rookies Preston Campbell (+32″) and Ruy Barbosa (+33″), both astride Hondas, rounding the top 5 in R2.

• Less of a straight blast in the desert than it was last time the race began in Yanbu, the Prologue set the tone and times for Stage 1 proper tomorrow, January 4, with the top riders able to choose their start position (later tonight in the bivouac) inside the top 15 and everyone else in time order.

Dakar 2026 Prologue results (Bikes):

Photo Credit: A.S.O. Charley Lopez + KTM + Honda