2026 Dakar Rally results from stage five, the second half of the marathon stage one where Red Bull KTM’s Luciano Benavides managed his speed and tyres best to take the win ahead of Hero’s nacho Cornejo and Daniel Sanders – Edgar Canet effectively goes out, Schareina slapped with 10 minutes penalty.

Dakar 2026 Stage 5 summed up:

356 kilometres crossing their fingers is all riders needed to do today, on stage five of the 2026 Dakar Rally. A second day of the marathon stage was a test of endurance for tyre carcasses which were “shredded” after yesterday and hanging on for dear life today it cost some riders in a big way – although one lead rider not riding between the flags at the start was a costly rookie error.

The leaderboard sure looked different. Edgar Canet leading the way from Nacho Cornejo, Adrien Van Beveren was in there for a while, Luciano Benavides, Brad Cox and Neels Theric filled the top five.

Rear tyres especially are battered from the rocks with many showing their canvas carcasses and it played a big part in the results today.

Canet’s gas backfires

Throwing less caution at it than most, KTM’s young Spanish gun Canet was on a mission, running fastest of all and looking odds-on for a second stage win of the rally. Canet caught Luciano Benavides on the ground – they started eighth and seventh respectively – and the teammates rode together until around kilometre 240 when Edgar proved it didn’t matter which tyre brand you were using.

Proving the risk of going too hard could cause a rear mousse and/or tyre to fail, Canet hit something, he’s not sure what, and with every metre things started to disintegrate. Edgar tried to fix it and carry on, even riding a section of the stage just on the rim, but when the wheel fell apart, his race was run. Or so we thought...

Luckily a miracle occured in the desert, maybe an oprange angel appeared like a mirage, and he was able to continue to the finish, four hours down. Edgar receives a six-hour time penalty also, officially for not finishing on the same tyre he started the marathon stage on.

Ross Branch also had to go slow on a ruined rear mousse which he somehow limped for more than 200 kilometres to make the finish and lost over one hour to sit P10 overall.

Luciano gets back up for the win

Canet’s woes allowed his teammate Luciano to take full advantage and, despite a bog crash early in the stage, the Argentinian hauled in his other KTM teammate Sanders, who had started six minutes in front this morning.

That big time gain gave Luciano his sixth career stage win: “It was a crazy day for me. I pushed and caught Edgar and then had a big crash, I don’t know how. But I continued and then Edgar has a problem with his tyre so I am alone and managed to keep pushing and catch Daniel and Nacho.

“I’m super-proud because I was not even sure if I could race in Dakar this year and now I have won the stage. When I crashed I thought my race was over but I didn’t lose the motivation and the hope.”

Podium pies

Behind the KTM rider, the fight was for the podium places on the stage was bossed by the Hero rider Nacho Cornejo who again carried under-the-radar pace for a solid result to sit P5 overall.

With the end in sight, and a little reassurance his tyre had made it, Daniel Sanders also gunned it towards the final check point and denied Bradley Cox a maiden stage podium for Sherco.

Sanders say he had to manage his tyres: “After the first refuel I looked at the tyres and I knew it was going to be a problem. They looked ok last night but at that point the crack was getting bigger. So I just took it easy in the middle part and through to the end really. It could have been the end of your race today.”

Schareina’s rookie error

Overnight race leader, Tosha Schareina along with second placed Ricky Brabec, again ran together out front for much of the day. The leaderboard was stalemate basically as they maintained and the Honda pair used the bonus point system to keep themselves in contention, clocking in fifth and six, although Sanders’ push towards the end was an important one.

Not as important as keeping between the flags though as Schareina was slapped with a 10 minutes penalty for “failing to respect the signs on leaving the bivouac at the start”. The rules require riders to enter the start area in a particular way and Tosha dodged it.

The simple but costly error drops the Spaniard to fourth place overall, 11m59s behind race leader Sanders.

“My tyres were fine for two days” – Brabec

Ricky Brabec finishes the day in fifth and lies second overall now, 2:02 behind but looking favourably ahead to the long day tomorrow where he will start from fifth: “It was a tricky morning with more slab rocks and some difficult navigation but hopefully it caught others out as well. People had to take care of their equipment and their tyres but my tyres ended up being perfectly fine for the two days.

“We’ll see where we’re at tomorrow, I heard there are a few sand dunes tomorrow so to be a little bit back is not terrible.” Said the American with a wry smile.

An element we forgot to mention yesterday in our coverage on this tyre issue is that Brabec is the only factory Honda rider on the Michelin Desert Race tyres – his HRC teammates are all on Metzelers. The HRC team has no tyre contract so the riders can choose and Brabec opted for the French manufacturer’s which are also on the Red Bull KTM bikes. We’re not sure if it was significant in the outcome but it feels important for your information banks.

Asked about it, Brabec said, “It’s just a personal choice thing. I haven’t had the best of luck with the other tyre brands so stuck to what I know in Rally.”

Rally2 class

Best Rally2 rider once on the stage, Neels Theric has shown these last two days what could have been if he hadn’t had an electronic part fail (not a stock part we understand) on his Kove during the prologue, which cost him two hours.

Seventh on the stage scratch just ahead of Mason Klein P7 (RallyGP class) for Hoto’s best-ever Dakar stage result, Theric headed Konrad Dabrowski and Preston Campbell for the class podium on the day with all three inside the top 10. Campbell continues to lead overall with a handsome 20 minutes over Dabrowski and Mulec third.

Longest way down

Tomorrow, stage six from Ha’il to Riyadh, will be a biggy in more ways than one. It is the longest stage with a programmed 920 kilometres in total down south (six hour on the road by car alone FYI). That breaks down into an ass-numbing 598km on the road and 331km of special, the majority of which will be sand.

Sand and particularly dunes means anyone in front will find it hard to keep any advantage so tomorrow night we could see some significant moves in the overall classification to reflect upon during the rest day on Saturday.

Dakar 2026 Stage 5 results scratch:

Provisional classification after stage 5, RallyGP:

Provisional classification after stage 5, Rally2:

Photo Credit: Edo Photo + Red Bull Content Pool + Kove UK