2025 Dakar Rally stage eight results where Monster Energy Honda riders mobbed the day but KTM’s Luciano Benavides spoiled the party for his first stage win this year.

2024 Dakar Rally Stage 8 in a nutshell – Duwadimi > Riyadh Special: 483km Liaison: 250km

• Race leader Daniel Sanders says the tricky beginning to the eighth stage, the longest day of the ‘25 Dakar, made his plan to stay ahead of the chasing pack for as long as possible, harder than planned.
• Just shy of 100km the Red Bull KTM rider, first away today, had been sucked up by the pursuing Spaniards, Rally 2 leader and teammate Edgar Canet and the closest challenger, Monster Honda’s Tosha Schareina starting third.
• The Honda lead man is rumoured to be riding with a broken collarbone, Enduro21 has heard, which makes his results even more remarkable.
• It’s simple maths from that point on with Schareina gaining six minutes on Sanders (the top 10 start three minutes apart) with rookie in the middle, Canet, getting a great taste of what it’s like to lead a stage as the trio held together for nearly 400 kilometres to the finish.
• The two-times winner Ricky Brabec has struggled on the days he has had lead out this year but made up for disappointment yesterday to set standard time for nearly five hours of racing.
• Honda teammate Skyler Howes was back on it too after a crash yesterday he was able to continue and finished just half a minute adrift of Brabec, comleting the top five.
• The Honda camp however lost a rider today with hugely experienced Pablo Quintanilla crashing out of the race and seventh. No bones broken is the initial prognosis as the Chilean counted on Luciano Benavides and Adrien Van Beveren for help at on the ground before the medics arrived.
• Benavides and Van Beveren were stopped for around 30 minutes and would later be awarded time back which bumped them back up the results significantly.
• When all the corrections, notes and queries had been totted it was Benavides who emerged the winner despite saying it was difficult to get himself back into action after helping Pablo.
• Luciano spoiled the Honda party 2m08s ahead of Van Beveren who in turn was four seconds faster than Schareina who had time bonuses bumping him ahead of Brabec on corrected time.
• 6m:42s of time bonuses (minus one for speeding) also helped minimise the damage for Sanders whose lead is set on repeat – shifting between 15 minutes and 11 minutes depdnign on where he starts. It’s a trend followed on consecutive days as the Aussie manages his race.
• The Sherco boys Lorenzo Santolino and Rui Goncalves were posting solid times today again but the stage three winner Santo hit problems 300km into the stage and lost a chunk of time fixing what he suspected was either dirt or water. The lost time drops him outside the top 10.
• Edgar Canet gains experience with every Dakar kilometre and will have put a load in the bank today. Finishing second yesterday, the young Spaniard tagged on with Sanders and Schareina today for close to 400 kilometres which helped him pull over 30 minutes clear in Rally 2 class over Tobias Ebster and into the top 10 overall. He hasn’t quite emulated some of his illustrious KTM historical teammates with a stage win in his first Dakar, yet…
• In Rally 2 daily classification it was Michael Docherty’s turn and claim a second stage of the rally, 43s ahead of Canet with Toni Mulec third.
• The day concluded with a dose of drug testing for some riders before they could start to think about stage nine tomorrow. It’s familiar terrain for regular competitors in Saudi and runs from Riyadh to Haradh on almost all gravel tracks for 357km of special and 252km on the road/liaison.

2025 Dakar Rally stage 8 results (provisional):

* rider not in general classification

2025 Dakar Rally provisional classification after stage 8 (by class):

Photo Credit: Edo Bauer + Honda Racing + Red Bull | Marcelo Maragni | Flavien Dunhamel