2026 Dakar Rally stage nine results see a shake-up in the overall standings as navigation woes affect lead riders on the marathon stage and Monster Energy Honda’s Tosha Schareina takes advantage – Daniel Sanders regains the overall as leading four riders playing high-speed geocaching games in the desert.

Dakar 2026 Stage 9 summed up:

If riders had been commenting how easy stages seven and eight were, today’s stage nine sure focused the mind.

First rider away, Kevin Benavides only made it as far as 33 kilometres into the 418km special before a waypoint eluded him and he rapidly lost all of his advantage – the Argentinian led the Dakar for the first time overnight but now sits back down in third again.

His Red Bull KTM teammate Daniel Sanders also couldn’t find it and needed the third and fourth placed starters, Monster Energy Honda’s Ricky Brabec and Tosha Schareina, to join the game of hide and seek with this invisible waypoint. Imagine, the four leading riders in the Dakar all together like a happy family out geocaching and all this at the start of a four-hour stage.

How can they not find a waypoint?

For anyone who doesn’t see the problem here, geocaching is a good analogy. Riders use their detailed roadbooks and navigation equipment – chiefly a compass or “CAP” reading – to locate invisible waypoints in the desert, of which there were 29 today.

You’d think it would be easy, and mostly it is, but the race organisers sometimes make life harder by throwing them off deliberately. As Sam Sunderland once told us, “It’s not as if there’s a pile of burning tyres to find, we’re looking for an invisible point in an empty desert.”

WPs can be along the logical course “forwards” on the compass and navigation. It can be easy as they get close to within a few metres and, beep, you’re on to the next one.

But as the riders undulate, twist and turn through the desert, canyons and dunes, it is just as easy to not quite be on the exact compass bearing and miss the WP by metres and end up circling around and not able to locate it.

Friends and rivals – like old times

Which is what happened at km34 today and Sanders ate three minutes out of Benavides almost immediately off the start, an important gain back for him in the overall classification.

Then, boom! Hello HRC’s Brabec and Schareina who had three and six minutes respectively right there.

With all those maths in mind they have to also try and stay clear of each other to gain valuable bonus time – whoever is leading or anyone within 15 seconds of each other keeps the time bonus counter ticking and it was Brabec who slipped up today by not keeping up enough.

There’s a certain amount of rivalry as well as respect between these guys and the two teams keep themselves to themselves normally. For them to physically be elbow to elbow trying to race and make strategy decisions about tomorrow (see rider quotes below) on today’s stage reminds us of the old days where riders like Marc Coma or Cyril Despres were playing games with rivals on stage on a daily basis.

That’s not all, folks

Also playing a huge mind game today is the fact this is part one of a near 1000km marathon stage. Two days unassisted by their teams, and on the same set of wheels, mousses and tyres, played absolute havoc in week one and riders had to ride mindful of the consequences of going too hard.

In their favour, today was a lot more sandy (with at least one massive dune) and less rocky which is easier on the hoops. Most riders were reporting no bike probems at the finish of the stage.

Schareina turns it around

Tosha Schareina was the rider throwing least caution to the wind but, frankly, he had to if he wanted to make up time he’s haemorrhaged in the last few stages.

Tosha made it his stage by catching his rivals and going for it in the dunes with spells riding clear out front, gapping Sanders who in turn left Brabec in his wake to accumulate some time bonus alone.

But he’d mostly gained it all by closing everyone down at the start and then staying out front with Sanders and the two amassed the most bonus time today, 3:18 and 4:43 respectively. Brabec meanwhile only took 12 seconds (1s per km raced) which wasn’t nearly enough.

Shoutout to Michael Docherty, the Rally2 rider who famously blew his race out of the desert on the first marathon stage last week. He loves the dunes and today clocked in third place overall for his best result of the rally right in the mix with the Pro riders.

Overall lead goes back to Sanders

All of the above, plus big losses today for the overnight leader Luciano Benavides, means Daniel Sanders is back in the driving seat of the rally. Again he finishes near but not at the front, accumulating time bonuses but not setting out first tomorrow morning will also help. He’s doing the thing he did last year and which his rivals, chiefly Ricky Brabec, seem unable to master.

Sanders has a 6:24 advantage over Brabec in second while Benavides drops back after his disastrous day, 7:05 adrift. Despite his strong performance today, Schareina is 15:28 behind after too many below-par results in the past three days.

Rally2 riders inside the top 10 overall included Neels Theric and class leader Preston Campbell in P10. For a couple of days now Toni Mulec has been closing down Campbell’s lead but the American, riding for the HRC team on the customer CRF450 Rally, benefitted from Mulec’s mechanical issues today to extend his lead back out to 17:28. Chilean Ruy Barbosa moves into third place overall in class, albeit 1hr44m behind.

Say what? Top riders explain their stage:

Tosha Schareina: “It was a good day for me and after they made a mistake, my strategy changed from that moment to try and take as many bonus points as possible. Towards the end it was fast and straight again so it was difficult to fight and in the end we were all riding together again.”

Daniel Sanders: “We were in a different area we hadn’t raced before this morning which was really nice and cool. There was one tricky note there, Luciano was lost and it was a bit of chaos. Then Ricky arrived and that was bang, six minutes there, then a couple more Ks down the track Tosha arrived and it was a lot of time lost right there.

“Everyone was trying to make a strategy for tomorrow after that because there’s supposed to be a lot of sand dunes. I changed my mind a couple of times throughout the day but in the end we just have to keep cruising and whatever the result is for today and the start position we’ll just make the best of it tomorrow.”

Ricky Brabec: “I was expecting something a little different today. Around the 30 kilometre mark I caught those other guys, they made a small mistake, and we kind of rode together in a big group.

“Last night before bed we had a perfect strategy but today we had to do it on the fly and it didn’t quite work out. But I feel like I’m still in a good spot for tomorrow. I’m still waiting for some teammates to show up so they can split us up a little bit but Daniel and Tosha were opening really fast today. At least for now I have those two in front of me to make a line.”

Dakar 2026 Stage 9 provisional results:

*Riders with stars are out of the running

**Results will update in full once they become official

Provisional classification after stage 9:

Photo Credit: A.S.O. Charley Lopez + Edo Photo