2025 Dakar Stage 3 results – big names falter

Amid Budget Speech shock, yet another Land Bill proposed

Katja Hamilton

2025 Dakar Stage 2 was a complete mixed bag with drama aplenty for some of the bigger teams (read more here). The massive overnight news coming ahead of 2025 Dakar Stage 3 was the retirement of Carlos Sainz.

The damaged sustained when his Ford Raptor rolled during the first part of the chrono stage was deemed too much for the car to be safe going forward. That means he will not be able to defend his title.

2025 Dakar Stage 3 took the competitors away from Bisha for the first time in this event. The original stage was supposed to take the racers from Bisha to Al Henakiyah on a 496km timed section.

However, severe storms in Al Henakiyah meant that the stage had to be shortened to 327km. This new, shorter stage must’ve felt like a breeze after the nearly 1,000km second stage.

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