Rallying-Lategan leads the Dakar, champion Al-Rajhi withdraws

Jan 7 : Saudi Arabia's ‌Dakar Rally champion Yazeed Al-Rajhi declared an end to his title defence and withdrew on Wednesday as South African Henk Lategan dominated the fourth stage for Toyota and took over at the top.

Al-Rajhi had been struggling from the start in his customer entry Toyota Hilux, and was already 19th when he withdrew with technical issues 234km into the 452km part of a two-day marathon stage around Al-Ula.

"Sadly, our Dakar 2026 journey ends here," he posted on Facebook. "We'll come back stronger next year."

The Saudi explained later that he had ‌lost half an hour with two punctures and, with nearly half the stage ‌remaining until the bivouac and having to go slow with no further spare available, had called it a day.

It ended a difficult year for the Saudi since he won last year, with Al-Rajhi crashing in Jordan last April and breaking two vertebrae. He returned to competition only in September.

Lategan, last year's overall runner-up, took his fifth career stage win and led Qatar's Nasser Al-Attiyah by three minutes and 55 seconds.

"Yesterday, we had a total of nine punctures. It's unbelievable. I think ‍that's a record in three days. I was lost," the factory Toyota driver said, his happiness tempered by missing his son's sixth birthday.

"I didn't know what to do on the rocks, whether to slow down or not, attack or not. Today I decided to forget all that and just go for it. It's a lottery anyway."

Al-Attiyah, a five-times Dakar winner now with the ​Dacia Sandriders team, was second in the ‌stage - more than seven minutes behind Lategan - to move up from 10th overnight.

"We did a good job, we're here, and I think we didn't lose too much time. It might even be good for ​our start position tomorrow," he said.

"We