SHUBAYTAH, SAUDI ARABIA (Reuters) -Local hero Yazeed Al-Rajhi secured his first Dakar title on Friday, finishing the 12-stage rally almost four minutes ahead of his closest competitor Henk Lategan, while Red Bull KTM's Daniel Sanders maintained his lead to win in the motorcycle category.

Yazeed al-Rajhi made history on Friday by becoming the first driver from host nation Saudi Arabia to win the Dakar Rally.Saudi Arabia have hosted the Dakar Rally since 2020, when it moved from South America.

Henk Lategan and Yazeed Al-Rajhi will duel in the Saudi sand for their first Dakar Rally title after swapping the lead for a second straight day.

The Dakar Rally has been held in several countries since its inaugural edition in 1979, but no driver had managed to lift the Touareg trophy on home soil until Yazeed Al-Rajhi this year. The Saudi driver won an atypical 2025 event in which a number of favourites fell by the wayside early on,

Toyota's South African Henk Lategan regained the overall lead in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday with a two minutes and 27 seconds advantage over Saudi Arabia's Yazeed Al-Rajhi going into the penultimate stage.

Local driver Yazeed Al Rajhi took advantage of a miserable stage by South Africa's Henk Lategan to grab the Dakar Rally lead in the Saudi Arabia desert on Tuesday. Lategan led the Dakar for the past week,