Overview
- Al-Attiyah won the 326km Ha’il–Riyadh special by 2m58s over Sébastien Loeb, overturning a 3m17s deficit to Henk Lategan into a 6m10s overall advantage before the pause.
- Toyota’s Seth Quintero took third on the stage ahead of teammates Toby Price and João Ferreira, with Ford’s Nani Roma and Carlos Sainz sixth and seventh.
- The general classification now has Lategan second, Roma up to third for Ford, Sainz fourth, Mattias Ekström fifth, Loeb sixth and Thursday winner Mitch Guthrie seventh after opening the road.
- Dacia achieved its first Dakar stage one-two as Loeb followed Al-Attiyah home, giving the Qatari his 49th career car stage victory.
- In RallyGP, Daniel Sanders kept the bike lead after a six-minute speeding penalty, Ricky Brabec inherited the stage win, and the gap narrowed to 45 seconds with Luciano Benavides third more than 10 minutes back.