Dakar 2026, Stage 7: Kane, 2nd place, more difficult for Tosha, another display from Saunders. Pedro wins in the original

daniel sanders current champion of dakaris heading for its second consecutive victory in the world’s toughest motorcycle race. pilot of KTM Taking advantage of his 3rd place position at the start of the 7th stage, he showed his attack again and extended his lead from the 7th stage. sling of Ricky Brabec and Tosha Chalaynahe left and opened the road before him.

The Australian pilot, who loves beekeeping, has taken another step in the general classification, proving once again that he is the most qualified and the most stable man on all kinds of stages. When his turn opens the track, he shows a destructive rhythm and remembers only youFailure due to speeding in previous step (6) which took 6 minutes. This mistake, which he defined as “stupid”, gave wings to his rivals, with Tosha Chalayna still fighting after 12 minutes, making the overall classification with Brabec very close, 45 seconds.

But Saunders, who had a well-deserved rest day, ended the day catching his rivals on the track at full speed, and even though he had to clear the way and lead the navigation, he dealt another mental blow to his rivals by running away from both of Golden Wing’s bikes as well.

Adding color to KTM were two other KTM riders. Luciano Benavides wins the stage ahead of Edgar Canetto (2nd place at 4’47”)It was thus a double record for an Austrian two-wheeler with Van Beveren (third place in 4 minutes 57 seconds, while Saunders, who benefited greatly from the day, was fourth in 5 minutes 35 seconds, gaining over two minutes bonus by opening the track at the end of the special).It was a great day for KTM. Luciano is already second overall behind Ricky Brabec, with only 15 seconds separating him from the American in the battle for second place.

Tosha Chalayna closed the gap on the day’s winner Brabec by 8 minutes 45 seconds and a further 9 minutes 15 seconds on this stage. In this way, Saunders beat Brabec, who was leading by 45 seconds, by 4 minutes and 25 seconds, giving him a 4 minute and 40 second lead over teammate Luciano Benavidez, while Tosha Chalayna took fourth place in 15 minutes and 06 seconds, a distance that seems virtually insurmountable. Valencia has three drivers in front of him and it looks hard for all three to fail. And above all, thanks to Saunders’ extraordinary perseverance and the narrow margins that existed between the favorites at each stage, it was only a miracle that Tosha was able to virtually bid farewell to the title.

Kanet, good start to second week

edgar canetdeclared there was no point in taking the risk in the second week after he was ruled out of the fight in the general classification due to wheel problems on stage five. But in the beginning, Edgar had an excellent stage result of second place, which helped his teammates Saunders and Luciano fight for the title and second place.

It could have been better for Canet. He could have won his third stage. in this dakar What if you had a navigation error at the 15km mark and had to go back 3km? To find the right path. Still, he moved up to second place with great speed.

In the next step, On day eight, Edgar will start second, sandwiched between Luciano, Van Beveren and Saunders in fourth. must protect oneself from attack Brabec was far behind and started in 10th place., Tosha starts from 7th place. Both go on the attack. That said, no matter what happens, Sanders will always succeed.

Pedro wins with original and closes in on the lead

Josep Pedro It continues to shine its own light in the purest category. dakarwithout mechanical assistance, motul original. Catalan This was his fourth stage win in this category at this Dakar, and he was just 2 minutes and 50 seconds behind original leader Benjamin Meloto.it was a very good day in which, despite having to do all the mechanics at the end of each stage, he was able to score 19th place among all motorcycles in his class on the day and therefore occupy 23rd place in the overall motorcycle ranking.

In fact, Pedro spent his days “resting” while doing a lot of work. He spent hours rebuilding the bike, and In the process, it encountered a serious safety issue with a cracked swingarm.there is a crack at the weakest point. Fortunately, I was able to detect this and manually replace the entire swingarm, allowing me to approach Stage 7 more confidently.

Arnau Jed has also continued to perform well, starting from 24th place in the stage, finishing 9th in Rally 2, his Dakar debut, and 19th overall.