Mattias Ekstrom Wins Dakar 2026 Stage 7 After Lategan Drama

Dakar, Sportrik Media – Mattias Ekstrom of Ford claimed victory on Stage 7 of the Dakar Rally 2026 after long time leader Henk Lategan suffered a major technical issue in the closing kilometres of the 459 km stage between Riyadh and Wadi Ad Dawasir.

Lategan, driving for Toyota, had led the stage until the final checkpoint at kilometre 375 with a 1 minute 46 second advantage over Ekstrom. However, suspension failure in the final sector caused the South African to lose more than 10 minutes, handing the stage victory to Ekstrom, who finished 4 minutes 27 seconds ahead of Joao Ferreira.

As a result, Lategan dropped to 13th in the stage classification, 8 minutes 35 seconds behind Ekstrom, and lost the opportunity to become the first repeat stage winner of Dakar 2026. More importantly, the time loss also cost him the provisional overall lead, which he had taken from Nasser Al Attiyah at the 375 km split point.

Explaining the incident, Lategan said that a broken damper caused the delay. “We hit a small bump and a dip, and the damper shaft snapped clean in the middle. The car was hanging on one side, so we had to stop and replace it with a spare. There were many damaged parts to clear, which took a lot of time,” he explained to the official media.

The late drama reshuffled the stage results, with Mitch Guthrie finishing third behind Ekstrom and Toyota’s Joao Ferreira. Toby Price was fourth for the Toyota factory squad, just six seconds short of the podium, followed by Lucas Moraes and Sebastien Loeb of Dacia, with Seth Quintero in seventh.

Matthieu Serradori continued to impress for Century Racing in eighth, while Ford drivers Carlos Sainz and Nani Roma completed the top ten. Roma had earlier been declared the winner of Stage 5 after a 1 minute 10 second overspeeding penalty was overturned by the FIA.

In the overall standings, Al Attiyah retained the lead despite finishing 11th on Stage 7, but his advantage has been cut to 4 minutes 47 seconds by Ekstrom, who now sits second. Roma moves up to third, while Lategan drops to fourth, 7 minutes 21 seconds behind the leader, followed by Sainz in fifth and Loeb in sixth, keeping the Dakar Rally 2026 fight wide open at https://sportrik.com/en.