The bigger, the better!
Dakar 2026 |
Stage 7 |
RIYADH
> WADI AD DAWASIR
January 11
th
2026
- 19:57
[GMT + 3]
The winner of stage 7 in the truck category, Vaidotas Zala, turned to the juggernauts of the Dakar to write a new chapter in his career after winning a car special in 2020. Together with Paulo Fiuza, who has navigated for drivers of the calibre of Carlos Sousa, Orlando Terranova and Stéphane Peterhansel, the Lithuanian is advancing towards Yanbu with lofty ambitions.
Vaidotas Zala was already well known in the Lithuanian and Baltic motor sports scene by the time he lined up for the 2016 Dakar. His first appearance in a car, back when the rally was held on the other side of the pond, were basically a long learning curve with flashes of brilliance that brought him tantalisingly close to the top 10 (twelfth in 2019), but no higher. His breakthrough came in 2020, in the very first stage held in Saudi Arabia. Zala made history in his own way by stamping his name at the top of a star-studded classification. The Lithuanian outsider defeated Stéphane Peterhansel, Carlos Sainz and Nasser Al Attiyah. Not bad! "My first win was completely unexpected. When I got out of my car and they told me I'd won the stage, I thought they were pulling my leg. It seemed impossible." To be fair, it remains his sole victory in the car category.
Now hungry for more, the driver sitting in third place overall (33 minutes from Mitchel van den Brink) has six stages left to pursue the title. Gerard de Rooy, a two-time winner of the event (2012 and 2016) who runs the eponymous team and tuned the truck of today's stage winner, thinks he should go for it: "There aren't that many people who can go fast in a car and in a truck, and he's come a long way this year. I think he can win it. He's just as fast as Macík or Van den Brink day after day. He just needs to steer clear of trouble. If he can keep it up, I fancy his odds." The words of a master!
In 2025, a tad frustrated at not being able to go toe to toe with the factory cars on a regular basis, the driver from Vilnius was inspired to take up a fresh challenge. Why not roll the dice in a truck? After all, the juggernauts rarely have to stop for mechanical reasons. His sixth sense for finding the most efficient path through turns propelled him to fifth place overall. One year on, Zala has raised the bar even further on the road to Wadi ad-Dawasir, where he has become the first driver in history to prevail in both categories. His defeated rivals, Aleš Loprais and Martin Macík, are also some of the biggest names in the sport. It has been a successful transition: "Taking my first win is a nice touch. I'm loving the second chapter of my Dakar story. The more I drive the truck, the more I like it. A car weighs two tonnes and a truck weighs ten, so the balance is really different, but I've grown used to it. I hope we can keep it up".
