Henk Lategan: “One of the most difficult stages I’ve had to open”

Dakar 2026 | Stage 5 | BIVOUAC REFUGE > HAIL
January 8 ^th 2026 - 12:40 [GMT + 3]

Yesterday's winner, Henk Lategan, had the difficult task of opening the special, followed by Nasser Al Attiyah. Although both men lost time to their pursuers, they should retain the lead in the overall rankings in the same order, with a 1'17’’ gap.

 “It was really, really, really difficult, one of the most difficult stages I’ve had to open. There were no bike tracks and a lot of the tracks were really, really small tracks. The rain washed a lot of them away. I think the last two days you didn’t really want to open but Brett did a great job to get us here. We opened almost the whole day before Nasser overtook us for 200 metres at the end but then wrong slotted allowing us to pass again. It was relatively clean the whole day right until the end when Nasser overtook us. We were sitting in his dust and hit a massive ditch. I hurt myself a little bit but the car is ok. We will check if everything is ok. For the car to make it through two days of marathon is actually an amazing job by the team seeing that this car was tested for the first time three months ago”.