Ford dominated Stage 11 of the 2026 Dakar Rally, with Mattias Ekstrom heading a 1-2-3 while team-mate Nani Roma chipped into Nasser Al-Attiyah’s overall lead, and Toyota’s victory hopes ended when Henk Lategan dropped out of contention.
For the majority of the 346km stage running from Bisha to Al-Henakiyah, the Ford drivers controlled the stage leaderboard, as Ekstrom led at all the major checkpoints to take his second stage win of the event, plus his triumph in the Prologue.
Ekstrom took the stage win by 1m22s from Ford team-mate Romain Dumas, with fellow Raptor driver Carlos Sainz Sr completing the top three, 2m26s off the winner.
The major twist of the day’s action was Toyota’s Lategan dropping from the victory fight. The South African had been second overall and the main challenger to Al-Attiyah, but hit trouble 140km into the stage which halted him for 1h40m, before he was briefly able to get going again.
The time lost pushed Lategan out of contention, and also effectively ended Toyota’s hopes of victory with none of its drivers inside the top seven of the overall classification.
On the stage, Joao Ferreira did take fourth for Toyota for the South African arm of the team, with stablemate Seth Quintero fifth ahead of X-raid Mini’s Guillaume de Mevius.
#202 Toyota Gazoo Racing W2Rc Toyota: Henk Lategan, Brett Cummings
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
A trio of Toyotas followed, with Guy Botterill seventh, Saood Variawa eighth and Eryk Goczal ninth, as Sebastien Loeb (Dacia) completed the top 10 ahead of Ford’s Roma – with overall leader Al-Attiyah a low-key 17th for the day.
Coupled with Lategan’s drop down the order, Roma now leads the hunt of Al-Attiyah in the overall classification, with the Ford driver trimming the deficit to 8m40s at the top of the standings.
Dacia’s Loeb is up to third overall with nearly three minutes splitting him from stage winner Ekstrom who moved into fourth. Fellow Ford driver Sainz remains in contention, albeit almost 29 minutes off the lead.
Stage 10’s victor Mathieu Serradori jumped to sixth overall for Century, ahead of another Dacia runner in Lucas Moraes, as a trio of Toyotas rounded out the overall top 10 in Toby Price, Varaiawa and Botterill.
Dakar Rally – Overall results after Stage 11:
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time/Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nasser Al-Attiyah | The Dacia Sandriders | 44h39m59s |
| 2 | Nani Roma | Ford Racing | +8m40s |
| 3 | Sebastien Loeb | The Dacia Sandriders | +18m37s |
| 4 | Mattias Ekstrom | Ford Racing | +21m32s |
| 5 | Carlos Sainz Sr | Ford Racing | +28m48s |
| 6 | Mathieu Serradori | Century Racing Factory Team | +36m06s |
| 7 | Lucas Moraes | The Dacia Sandriders | +37m01s |
| 8 | Toby Price | Toyota Gazoo Racing W2RC | +56m59s |
| 9 | Saood Variawa | Toyota Gazoo Racing SA | +1h03m56s |
| 10 | Guy Botterill (RSA) | Toyota Gazoo Racing SA | +1h07m43s |
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