Sanders extends lead as Benavides wins Dakar Stage Seven

2026 Dakar Rally

Stage Seven – Riyadh to Wadi Ad Dawasir

Stage Seven of the 2026 Dakar Rally saw Australia’s Daniel Sanders drop down the stage finishers, but extend his overall lead, in a trade-off he’s likely to be happy with, especially considering he was left to open the later stages of the course.

Stage seven of the 2026 Dakar Rally marked the beginning of week two as riders left Riyadh and headed south toward Wadi Ad-Dawasir on a long and demanding 877-kilometer route, including 459 kilometers against the clock, with Brabec opening the course but quickly caught.

Fast open valleys and high-speed tracks were followed by extended dune sections, where navigation and rhythm proved critical, before the stage tightened through narrower, more technical terrain later in the day.

Sander’s KTM teammate Luciano Benavides claimed top honours, with a surprising return to pace for Edgar Canet making for another KTM on the podium in a 1-2, while Adrien Van Beveren rounded out the top-three, just 10-seconds off second.

Luciano Benavides

“I’m really pleased to take my second stage win of the race today. I pushed all day and felt great out there. Starting the second week like this is really positive, I’m in good shape and highly motivated. I felt very comfortable on the bike today and my body feels good too. Today was super-fast but I just stayed focused and concentrated on my navigation. Overall, I think I did a really good job.”

Benavides took his career seventh Dakar stage with the win, while Canet charged from 46th at km 30, all the way up to 24th by km 58, and just kept charging, well and truly bouncing back from his stage five woes.

Edgar Canet

“Stage seven was really fast. I got lost right at the beginning, around kilometre 15, but after that, I was able to find my rhythm and get stuck in to chasing down the riders in front. I had a really good feeling with the bike and was able to take P2 on the stage, so I’m super-happy with how the day went. Luciano won today and Daniel was P4, so it was a great day for us. Now we have to open tomorrow and try to make as much time as we can.”

The KTM domination mirrored the brand’s success in the Anaheim round of US Supercross, where Eli Tomac took the win and Jorge Prado claimed third.

Benavides closed the gap to Ricky Brabec, with just 15-seconds now separating the numbers two and three in the standings, while Sanders extended his lead to 4m25s, from just 45-seconds. That was off the back of Brabec dropping down to 10th for the stage, 9m15s off pace.

Adrien Van Beveren

“It was a much better day, mainly because I enjoyed my riding. It was a very very fast stage, like towards the end it was only flat out, straight, full gas. At the beginning we had some nice dunes, some sand sections and I’m happy, mainly because I enjoyed that more than for the result itself. I’m thankful to the team for the job we’ve done on the rest day, we had some discussions with the engineers on how we could adapt the bike. We did some different suspension settings and it helped me a lot to feel better, so I’m looking forward to the coming days, getting into the same rhythm with the same feeling.”

Daniel Sanders

“I made one mistake at the start and lost two or three minutes, which was unfortunate. After that, it was hard to catch the guys in front because it was such a fast stage and difficult to make a difference. After the second refuel the leading riders on stage had slowed up to calculate the bonus, so I put the hammer down and pulled away to make sure they didn’t get any. I pushed as hard as I could to the finish. I feel good today, I rode well, and I’m just getting warmed up. The bike is working really well, my body feels strong, and I’m ready for a big day tomorrow.”

Back with the stage results, Skyler Howes rounded out the top five for Honda HRC, 6m46s off the pace, followed by Michael Docherty (+7m38), Tosha Schareina (+8m45), Ross Branch (+8m45), Ignacio Cornejo (9m10) and the already mentioned Brabec.

Skyler Howes

“It was a full gas day, we were on the throttle stopper pretty much the majority of the stage. I had a couple of bits of tricky navigation, one of which I did a super strange thing, turned around to get a waypoint I’d already got. I had to get the juices going after rest day, as I definitely needed it.”

Tosha Schareina

“Today was not easy, we had 460 km of special and it was so so fast, we did it in like 3 hours 20. It was so windy, I tried to push from the beginning to catch up to Ricky around the 120 km mark. It was so dusty today too. After the refuelling I caught him and I did the second section out front to grab as much bonus time. But after the second refuelling a made a little mistake and Daniel was catching us. He passed us and then we were riding in the dust again. We made some navigation mistakes, so it wasn’t such a good day, but we have a good position for tomorrow.”

Ricky Brabec

“It was not so tricky of a day but we did lose a little bit of time. No stress on my end, I mean tomorrow we’re in a really good position to claw back some time. For now, we’re doing all we can, we’re riding, having fun, we’re navigating, but hopefully tomorrow we can do a good job and make a good push and then we have the marathon camp, which takes its toll on tyres and things like that. Tomorrow’s looking good for us, we’re in a good position to have a solid day on what I think is one of the biggest stages of the rally, so for me it’s better to start at the back.”

Top Hoto racer Mason Klein finished 11th meanwhile, 11m37s off the pace, and top Kove in the form of Neils Theric was 13th (+12m42s). A technical failure held Bradley Cox back at km 431, just 28 km from the finish, after sitting in 15th position at the previous checkpoint.

In the standings we see a big jump from the top three, who are separated by just five-minutes, down to fourth places Schareina, who has 15-minutes to regain. Then an even bigger gap back to fifth and sixth overall places, held by Howes and Cornejo, both 33-minutes in arrears.

Van Beveren holds seventh (+55m57s), Branch eighth (1h39m22), Campbell from Rally 2 ninth (+1h43m32) and Mulec rounds out the top ten, almost two hours off the leader.

Michael Docherty was winner of the Rally2 special by 4m50 over Toni Mulec, marking his fifth triumph of the 2026 edition, however Docherty has been racing under Dakar Experience rules since stage four, so he can continue in the race but is no longer eligible for a finisher’s medal.

Preston Campbell will spend his fourth day at the summit of the Rally2 ranking, but the American rookie saw his margin over Toni Mulec dwindle to 11m07. The Slovenian was 20m54 behind after stage five and 16m42 down after stage six, so he has slashed his deficit by 9m47 in just three specials.

Aussie David Brock finished the stage in 94th, after 7h09m13s, three hours off the leading time and now sits 92nd overall.

Early pace had Toby Price in with a shot for the stage win in the Ultimate four-wheeler category, however he ended the stage in fourth, 5m01s off stage-winner Ekstrom, and now sits 12th overall – 36m39s off the leading pace of Nasser Al-Attiyah.

Next: Stage Eight

Monday’s stage eight, which includes the longest timed special of the event at 481 kilometres, also features a liaison of 236 kilometres as the riders complete a loop around Wadi Ad-Dawasir.

2026 Dakar Rally Stage Seven Results
(Provisional)

2026 Dakar Rally Standings after Stage Seven
(Provisional)

2026 Dakar Rally Route/Schedule

2026 Dakar Rally Route/Schedule

RelatedPosts

Are you hard enough? 2027 KTM 300 EXC HARDENDURO confirmed for Australia

September 4, 2026

2026 KTM 690 SMC R Review | Brilliant, brutal but hard to justify…

September 2, 2026