RIYADH: Reigning motorcycle champion Daniel Sanders has vowed to fight at the Dakar Rally on Wednesday despite suffering a suspected broken collarbone during stage 10 in the Saudi Arabian desert.
The Australian KTM rider crashed on a dune 138km into the 371km from the overnight bivouac to Bisha and fell from the lead to fourth overall, with American Ricky Brabec taking over at the top on a Honda.
“It certainly looks like a broken collarbone… We’ve let the rally play out now. We’ll go back to the team and reassess the injuries and the situation and see if it’s safe to continue, I guess,” Sanders said.
“I want to keep going, I wouldn’t finish today if I didn’t want to keep going… I just did 150km in the sand dunes, it’s all rocks now so I can just get up and cruise.
“On the gravel roads it’s a little easier, but we’ll see. We’re not giving up. Mom and Dad didn’t give up, so I’m not pulling out now. Until someone else tells me to pull out, or they pull me out of the race, I won’t stop.”
Honda’s Adrien Van Beveren won the stage ahead of Brabec, who was credited with one minute and 37 seconds for helping Sanders and took the overall lead.
The American leads Argentine KTM rider Luciano Benavides by 56 seconds and Spaniard Tosha Schareina third for Honda but 15 minutes and 43 seconds off the pace.
In the car category, Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah returns to the lead for Dacia and widens a gap of 12 minutes on South African Henk Lategan of Toyota and a further 50 seconds on former Ford leader Nani Roma.
“It was very hard,” Al-Attiyah said. “My head and body took a big hit. But we really attacked from start to finish.”
Lategan had described Tuesday as a bit of a disaster and that continued into stage 10 where he made a navigation error and ran out of fuel.
“I don’t know what to say anymore. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong in this race,” he said. “We lost power steering yesterday, ran out of fuel today and got lost twice missing waypoints. That’s not how you win the Dakar.”
Nine-time world rally champion Sébastien Loeb finished fourth overall, 23 minutes behind teammate Al-Attiyah.
Mathieu Serradori won the stage for the Century Racing team, ahead of Al-Attiyah second and Loeb third.
The race, which ends on Saturday on the Red Sea coast, is also the first round of the World Rally Raid Championship (W2RC) season.
Published in Dawn, January 15, 2026
