Dakar stage 10 disaster for Carlos Sainz and Nani Roma

Carlos Sainz and Nani Roma They ended up giving up a lot of time in stage 10. Dakar 2026a day when they already knew they would suffer from starting from a better position than their rivals. rallyand it was a complete disaster for the Spanish pilots. Carlos Sainz He said goodbye to the option of winning. Dakar 2026 and Nani Roma He lost invaluable time and became increasingly estranged from the new leader, Nasser al-Attiyah. What’s more, Cristina Gutierrez falls at the startalthough he could have continued. An unforgettable day for them.

The perfect combo hit them. On the day they had to start from the front, something happened that hurt them even more when they learned that they would eventually have to open the track and that their rivals would also do their best to start from the back. The waypoint at 186km raised many questions. Nani Roma’s co-pilot, Alex Haro, asserted that in the roadbook, the point to be conquered was marked on the track, but was actually next to the top of the dune. So Nani circled the dunes and came back looking.

It was even worse for Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz, who in the end gave up and failed to get past the point, having to face a 15-minute penalty. When the MD asked the man from Madrid about Haro’s words, he agreed, but didn’t want to blame his failure to win this Dakar on a specific mistake in the roadbook. And be careful, Nani Roma warned about the soft dunes and the difficulty of the route: “There will probably be about 15 cars left in the dunes today…”

Carlos Sainz has already warned that stage 10 will be the most difficult of the two important marathon stages of the Dakar (9 and 10). From the beginning of the race, he wanted to strategize so he wouldn’t have to start ahead of his opponents on stage 10. However, trouble on stage two due to a puncture with a wheel that no one could understand was unpredictable and Carlos had already warned before the start of the competition.

Although the Dakar director was adamant that the tires would not affect the race, the puncture caused Carlos to think twice about his race strategy. Then came the dreaded stage 10.

This important day came after ‘El Matador’, like Nani Roma, made a huge comeback in the first half of the marathon stage.. The Catalan was at the front of the rally, with Sainz in second place. But they didn’t laugh. they knew that Al Attiyah 1 minute 10 seconds overall, further set back on complex stage 10where we expected very difficult navigation, at some point we would have to open the runway and lose a lot of time, and that’s what happened.

Roma stops the blow, but the distance is far

Nani Roma was able to stop the blow a bit by conceding 20 minutes to the day’s winner Serradori on the goal line. He was 12 minutes and 50 seconds behind Qatar, who came in second place on the stage, and about 6 minutes behind the winner. There are three stages left, but with the possibility of stones and punctures on day 11, anything could still happen. And while Nani may be able to recover by starting from the back, Roma’s third place overall complicates his dreams of winning the Dakar again in a car.

Big blow to Sainz

What was worse was Carlos Sainz. jug of cold water. Carlos lost a total of 45 minutes. (This includes a 15-minute penalty for not finding the waypoint.) As a result, with three stages remaining, he was already 39 minutes and 09 seconds behind the leader, completely eliminating his chances of winning the 2026 Dakar Rally. It’s a distance that can’t be recovered.

Carlos had problems with navigation. He was 5 minutes and 39 seconds off his best time at an altitude of 121 km.The journey from 155km to 196km took 28 minutes, with 22 minutes lost on this section due to getting lost.

Mr. Lucas Cruz, a man from Madrid and our navigator, They could no longer recover and began losing 25 minutes of time at the 239-kilometer mark, eventually ending up with 30 minutes of time and a 15-minute penalty at the finish line. If a waypoint (a navigation-required intersection) cannot be found.

Nasser al-Attiyah, new leader

On the sand dunes, the “Prince of the Desert” Nasser Al-Attiyah took advantage of his slow start (starting from 14th place) on his favorite terrain to follow his opponents and accelerate to full speed to take the lead in the race.

Mathieu Serradri won the 10th stage by 6 minutes and 12 seconds from Nasser and 9 minutes and 20 seconds from Sebastien Loeb, who also made his overall return, with co-driver Oriol Mena (with Botetil) taking an astonishing 5th place.

Therefore, in the general classification, Nasser (Dacia) leads by a very large margin and is heading towards his 6th Dakar crown. He is 12 minutes ahead of second place Henk Lategan (Toyota) and 12 minutes 50 seconds ahead of Nani Roma. Loeb moved into 4th place in the 23rd minute, and Serradori moved into 5th place in the 33rd minute. Meanwhile, Ekström (Ford) moved into 6th place in the 34th minute, and Sainz moved into 6th place in the 39th minute. Two Ford cars moved away from the championship. Only Nani is far away, but Nasser will need to suffer some trouble in tomorrow’s 11th stage to win away. Otherwise, the Dakar could be a victory for Qatar.