Carlos Sainz Sr has won the 2020 Dakar Rally’s lead Car category with Fernando Alonso finishing 13th overall as Ricky Brabec has won the Bike class.
Sainz Sr together with co-driver Lucas Cruz in the #305 Mini John Cooper Works Buggy for Bahrain JCW X-Raid Team won four stages out of 12, to win the 2020 Dakar Rally edition in the Car category in Saudi Arabia, with a total time of 42h59m17s.
This is the Spaniard’s third Dakar win after 2010 with Volkswagen and 2018 with Peugeot. Sainz Sr put on a consistent show en-route the victory after taking the lead in Stage 3 and maintaining it until the end, despite valiant effort from Nasser Al-Attiyah.
Al-Attiyah with co-driver Matthieu Baumel in the #300 Toyota Hilux for Toyota Gazoo Racing secured second overall, to record his eighth Dakar podium. The Qatari was consistent throughout the rally but with just the one stage win, he fell short by 6m21s.
He also had a three minutes penalty while Sainz Sr had none. The podium was completed by the Spaniard’s teammate Stephane Peterhansel in the #302 Mini with co-driver Paulo Fiuza, with four stage wins to his name too. He was only 9m58s behind Sainz Sr.
It is the Frenchman’s 17th podium finish. With Dakar taking place in the Middle East, the region was well represented with fourth overall finish for Yazeed Al Rajhi with co-driver Konstantin Zhiltsov in the #309 Toyota Hilux for Overdrive Toyota.
The two-time F1 champion Alonso did well in his Dakar debut to end up 13th overall with co-driver Marc Coma in his #310 Toyota Hilux with Toyota Gazoo Racing. The Spaniard had multiple hiccups but was the best rookie with a total time of 47h42m04s.
Among the other stage winners, Vaidotas Zala took a shock Stage 1 victory in his #319 Mini, while Giniel de Villiers won Stage 2 in his #304 Toyota and Mattheiu Serradori won Stage 8 in his #315 Century Buggy. De Villiers ended up fifth and Serradori is eighth.
Full results can be found here.
Bike
In the Bike category, Brabec claimed his maiden Dakar win abode the #9 Honda CRF 450 Rally machine, with a total time of 40h02m36s. The American took the lead in Stage 3 and remained on top until the end, with two stage wins to his name.
Husqvarna’s Pablo Quintanilla came close to toppling him but he had to settle for second, abode the #5 Husqvarna FR 450 Rally bike. The Chile-born rider ended up 16m26s behind with two stage wins, to record his best Dakar Rally result.
Having dominated the recent editions, KTM was pushed to third with Toby Price taking the spot abode the #1 KTM 450 bike. The Australian had two stage wins to his name as well but didn’t look menacing enough to challenge Brabec.
Among other stage winners, Jose Ignacio Cornejo Florimo took Stage 4 & Stage 12 abode the #17 Honda, while Joan Barreda won Stage 10 on the #12 Honda, Kevin Benavides took Stage 7 abode the #7 Honda and Ross Branch won Stage 2 on the #18 KTM.
Florimo ended up fourth overall with Barreda finished seventh, followed by Benavides in 19th and Branch was 21st. The Bike class, though, saw the loss of Hero MotoSports Rally Team’s Paulo Goncalves in Stage 7 which overshadowed the atmosphere.
The full results can be found here.
Quad, Truck and UTV
In the remaining three categories, the Quad class in 2020 Dakar was won by Ignacio Casale in the #250 Casale Racing machine, with Simon Vitse in second in the #265 Je Peux 2020-BBR Mercier Racing and Rafal Sonik third in the #251 Sonik Team.
Over in the Truck section, the crew of Andrey Karginov, Andrey Mokeev and Igor Leonov took the win abode the #511 Kamaz-Master ahead of the sister #516, while #503 Maz-Sportauto were third. The UTV category was won by Casey Currie and Sean Berriman.
