Overview
- Nasser Al-Attiyah sealed the cars crown by 9m42s over Nani Roma, with Mattias Ekström third after winning the final stage.
- Luciano Benavides clinched his maiden RallyGP championship by the smallest margin in event history after Brabec went off course near the finish.
- Al-Attiyah’s penultimate-stage victory was his 50th Dakar stage win, tying Ari Vatanen and Stéphane Peterhansel for the car-category record.
- Sébastien Loeb finished fourth overall, 37 seconds shy of Ekström, while Carlos Sainz Sr. completed the top five.
- The rally covered 13 stages and roughly 8,000 km in Saudi Arabia, where navigation, start-order strategy and mechanical durability proved decisive.