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De Mévius wins Dakar Rally stage one with amputee Baumel
YANBU, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Belgian driver Guillaume de Mévius came through under the radar to win stage one of the Dakar Rally on Sunday.
De Mevius’ tracking beacon went silent for a large portion of the 305-kilometer loop around Yanbu and he unexpectedly won the stage by 40 seconds from five-time champion Nasser Al Attiyah.
The stage win was also a triumph for de Mévius’ navigator Mathieu Baumel, whose right leg was amputated almost a year ago when he was hit by a car while offering roadside assistance in his native France. Baumel is wearing a prosthetic leg. He helped Al Attiyah win four Dakars and paired with de Mévius at last year’s Dakar for the first time.
Edgar Canet won the motorbike stage after Ross Branch was penalized six minutes for speeding and was dropped from first place to seventh.
Canet, whose prologue win on Saturday made the Spaniard the youngest ever Dakar stage winner at 20, extended his overall lead to 65 seconds over KTM teammate Daniel Sanders and became the first rider in 11 years to win the Dakar’s opening two stages.
Car prologue winner Mattias Ekström dominated the mainly dusty and rocky stage one until the sandy finish when he fell to fourth, 1:38 behind de Mévius and following Al Attiyah and Martin Prokop, the Czech privateer who earned his first Dakar podium since 2022.
“Winning a stage always feels good but it wasn’t really our strategy for the day,” de Mévius said. “Still, it’s a positive sign because we didn’t feel we had the outright pace to take the stage.”
The biggest loser was defending champion Yazeed Al Rajhi who received 16 minutes in penalties for missing a waypoint and speeding. He’s already 28:52 off the pace with 12 stages to go.
Branch led the motorbike stage for more than 200 kilometers but speeding cost the Motswana his first stage win since 2024, when he was the Dakar runner-up and world rally-raid champion.
The six-minute penalty handed the win to Canet, who was followed by Sanders and the Hondas of two-time champion Ricky Brabec and Tosha Schareina.
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