2026 Dakar Rally stage two results where Red Bull KTM’s Daniel Sanders takes his first day win of the 48th edition, leading from the front ahead of teammate Edgar Canet as Monster Energy Honda’s Ricky Brabec give chase.

Dakar 2026 Stage 2 summed up:

It’s way, way too early to talk about winners in this epic race but it’s just possible that as early as stage two in the 2025 Dakar that we can already see who the fight for the win is between.

The Dakar circus upped sticks and moved on from the Red Sea coast in Yanbu to race through some spectacular scenery to the ancient city of AlUla, a place where humans have stopped off on their travels for tens of thousands of years.

It was a 400km long special today, with four and a quarter hours raced for the top boys making it a tough one by any measure.

Canet’s crash helps KTM duo grab the bonuses

The story of the day in a nutshell is stage one winner Edgar Canet led everyone away but made mistakes early, including having some camel issues, which allowed teammate Daniel Sanders to catch up on the trail and the KTM pair continued to ride in tandem out front for most of the stage, amassing crucial bonus time in the process.

Riding independently but not far behind, the Honda pair of Ricky Brabec and Tosha Schareina traded fastest check times and the American actually was fastest on the stage. But it was a long one and though Brabec is notorious for keeping on it during the long stages, by the finish it was not quite enough to cancel out the bonus times of the KTM boys (5:42 and 4:04 respectively for Canet and Sanders).

The outcome? On a day where all four top riders would have loved to know where they were relative to each other in order to know how hard or not to push, Sanders wins by 1:34 from Canet with Brabec just 11s behind in third.

“I knew the terrain”

“It was much better today, much more like a Dakar day,” explains day winner, Sanders who claims his 10th career stage win. “We did this route in 2023 and I kind of knew what the terrain was going to be like, the track was really fun. It was good to get out front and open the way and fix any mistakes really quick so I didn’t lose too much time which is really important especially at day two in the race.”

Camels cause Canet tow

Stage one winner Edgar Canet encountered the local wildlife on the stage today, which cost him a taste of Saudi dirt around 100km in. A herd of camels which, Canet explains, wouldn’t have been a problem if he hadn’t been racing: “Normally when we are training and we see the camels, we stop. But we are racing so I tried to continue and go around them, but I hit a tree. It was no problem,” Canet added, “it just cost me some time.”

💘 Looks like the beginning of a love story#Dakar2026 #DakarInSaudi pic.twitter.com/exhQcD1CdQ

— DAKAR RALLY (@dakar) January 5, 2026

Sanders sneaks race lead

It helped Sanders eat up his teammate’s three-minute time advantage off the start but, in just his second Dakar, Edgar was able to watch and learn the technique for racing for the stage win from an expert.

The day win means some simple maths for the overall race lead: a 1:05 lead for Canet, plus the 1:35 deficit today means the overall race lead goes to Sanders by 30 seconds. Despite his efforts today, Brabec lost a little more ground overall to sit 2:18 adrift in third but has another long day tomorrow to chase down the orange duo ahead.

Brabec confident

“I’m more or less where I want to be.” Explained Brabec at the finish as he basically repeats his prologue and stage one results. “I was hoping to be a little further back for stage three but tomorrow we’re going to make the most of it and get some bonus time. That’s the name of the game if you can gain essentially free time and open well, you’re better off at the end of the day. Right now, I’m in a good position, my competition is just in front of me so if I keep them in my eyesight then we’re good.”

Rally 2 boys in the mix

Come the final scores on the doors it was also a good day for Brabec’s American teammate, Skyler Howes who had a good run to finish fourth ahead of Tosha Schareina making it three Honda’s in the top five.

Well in the mix of the best of the rest today were the Rally2 boys with the HRC pairing of Preston Campbell and particularly Martim Ventura who also added to the number red bikes in the top 10 overall.

Ventura posted an impressive sixth scratch to top the R2 category , finishing within four minutes of the stage winner and ahead of Ross Branch and the class leader Michael Docherty who finished eighth scratch and second in class.

Notable also that this is the Portuguese rider’s first Dakar and the Rally2 Stage 2 win is Honda’s first in this category with Martim riding the customer 450 Rally machine. 

The class win brings Ventura up to within 20 seconds of the Docherty’s lead as the pair now stretch clear of their rival in Rally2 with Tobi Ebster third and over 17 minutes adrift.

Notable retirees on this day are IOM TT racer James Hillier with a broken arm from yesterday and former stage winner, Sherco factory rider Lorenzo Santolino who looks like he is out after a heavy crash today which broke his bike. 

Stage three is a loop out from and back to AlUla and promises to be pretty similar for competitors at 422km of timed special.

Dakar 2026 Stage 2 results:

Provisional classification after stage 2, RallyGP:

Rally2: 

Photo Credit: A.S.O. | Jennifer Lindini + Honda Racing