Overview
- Guillaume De Mévius won the 305 km special starting and finishing in Yanbu, edging Nasser Al‑Attiyah by 40 seconds for X‑raid Mini.
- Martin Prokop took third for Ford, and prologue winner Mattias Ekström finished fourth after late time loss plus a 10‑second speeding penalty.
- Defending crew Yazeed Al‑Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk suffered two punctures, a wrong‑canyon navigation error, and a 16‑minute penalty, leaving them 28:52 back in 35th.
- Carlos Sainz, Nani Roma, and Sébastien Loeb ended the stage inside the top 10 to keep multiple title contenders within reach.
- The 48th Dakar in Saudi Arabia spans 13 stages and roughly 4,900 timed kilometers through January 17, while in motorcycles Edgar Canet inherited Stage 1 after Ross Branch’s speeding penalty to lead overall.