YANBU, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Luciano Benavides exploited a navigation blunder by Ricky Brabec minutes from the finish of the Dakar Rally to sensationally win the motorbike title on Saturday by two seconds — the smallest margin ever.
Meanwhile, Nasser Al-Attiyah safely secured his sixth car title on the 13th and final stage, a flat-out 105-kilometer sprint along the Red Sea coast to Yanbu.
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Driver Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar, right, and co-driver Fabian Lurquin of Belgium celebrate winning the Dakar Rally after the thirteenth stage with a start and finish in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, Saturday, Jan.17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Driver Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar, right, and co-driver Fabian Lurquin of Belgium celebrate winning the Dakar Rally after the thirteenth stage with a start and finish in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, Saturday, Jan.17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Rider Ricky Brabec of the U.S. reacts after the thirteenth stage with a start and finish in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, Saturday, Jan.17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Rider Luciano Benavides of Argentina, centre, celebrates winning the Dakar Rally after the thirteenth stage with a start and finish in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, Saturday, Jan.17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Rider Luciano Benavides of Argentina celebrates after the thirteenth stage with a start and finish in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, Saturday, Jan.17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Brabec was hurtling toward his third Dakar victory. While Benavides' KTM was faster in real time, Brabec's Honda was collecting time bonuses for opening the way and extending his overnight lead of 3 minutes, 20 seconds.
Then seven kilometers from the finish Brabec took a wrong turn. Benavides didn't. He saw a headlight turn around and slowed to see who it was. When he realized it was Brabec, Benavides knew the “almost impossible” was possible.
“I saw the opportunity and I took it,” he said. “I felt ready all day. I told everyone at the start of the stage ‘This Dakar is for me.’”
Benavides finished second on the stage to teammate Edgar Canet, who won his third stage of this Dakar. When Brabec arrived 3:22 behind Benavides, the Argentine's team lifted him on their shoulders and shouted “Lu-chan-oh, Lu-chan-oh.”
“It's unreal,” Benavides said. “Two seconds after two weeks and almost 8,000 kilometers is something that is hard to understand.”
The previous closest margin was 43 seconds by Luciano's older brother Kevin. That was another stunning comeback. Kevin started the 2023 final stage 12 seconds behind and won his second motorbike title.
Brabec's Honda teammate Tosha Schareina was a distant third after coming second last year.
Luciano started his ninth Dakar never having reached the podium and just three months after tearing knee ligaments in the Moroccan Rally.
Even after he started the second week with consecutive stage wins, he rode in the shadow of teammate and defending champion Daniel Sanders, who was dominating the race until he crashed on Wednesday and broke his collarbone and sternum. Sanders continued practically riding one-handed and finished fifth for valuable points in the defense of his world rally-raid title.
Brabec won Friday's stage to gather an overall lead that even Benavides thought “was mathematically almost impossible” to overcome.
But, he said, “I never stopped believing. For me there was no strategy any days, I just give my best. I never tried to slow down. I feel bad for Ricky. He did a mistake and (it) cost (him) the Dakar.”
Al-Attiyah confirmed his sixth car title — two behind the record of former teammate Stéphane Peterhansel -- and first for Dacia after a cautious final drive, nearly nine minutes behind Mattias Ekström, who won his car-leading fourth stage.
Nani Roma could hack only six minutes off the overall leader's pace and Al-Attiyah ultimately beat Roma by 9:42, easily the lowest margin of his six victories.
Al-Attiyah has won for four different manufacturers in 2011 and 2015 in Argentina, in 2019 in Peru and in 2022, 2023 and this year in Saudi Arabia.
“I still need to beat Peterhansel's record,” he said.
Al-Attiyah and Belgian navigator Fabian Lurquin both made their Dakar debut in 2004 and remember joking then that they would pair up one day. That happened only six months ago. Luquin, a former airline pilot, followed his father Jean-Marie into the Dakar and has surpassed him with his first Dakar win.
The Qatar-Belgium duo made the decisive move on Wednesday, regaining the lead by 12 minutes in the second half of a marathon stage. In the context of the closest race in more than two decades, the margin was massive.
“It's amazing to win," Al-Attiyah said. “I might not be showing much emotion but it's in my heart. We are so happy and thankful.”
Roma, the 2014 car champion, earned his first podium finish since 2019. Ekström's Ford held off Sébastien Loeb's Dacia by 37 seconds for consecutive third-place finishes. Loeb finished and failed to podium for the first time in 10 years.
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
Driver Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar, right, and co-driver Fabian Lurquin of Belgium celebrate winning the Dakar Rally after the thirteenth stage with a start and finish in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, Saturday, Jan.17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Driver Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar, right, and co-driver Fabian Lurquin of Belgium celebrate winning the Dakar Rally after the thirteenth stage with a start and finish in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, Saturday, Jan.17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Rider Ricky Brabec of the U.S. reacts after the thirteenth stage with a start and finish in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, Saturday, Jan.17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Rider Luciano Benavides of Argentina, centre, celebrates winning the Dakar Rally after the thirteenth stage with a start and finish in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, Saturday, Jan.17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Rider Luciano Benavides of Argentina celebrates after the thirteenth stage with a start and finish in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, Saturday, Jan.17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
NUUK, Greenland (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that he would charge a 10% import tax starting in February on goods from eight European nations because of opposition to U.S. control of Greenland.
He said in a social media post that Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland would face the tariff, which would be raised to 25% on June 1 if a deal is not in place for “the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland” by the United States.
Earlier Saturday, hundreds of people in Greenland's capital braved near-freezing temperatures, rain and icy streets to march in a rally in support of their own self-governance in the face of threats of an American takeover.
The Greenlanders waved their red-and-white national flags and listened to traditional songs as they walked through Nuuk's small downtown. Some carried signs with messages like “We shape our future,” “Greenland is not for sale” and “Greenland is already GREAT.” They were joined by thousands of others in rallies across the Danish kingdom.
The rallies occurred hours after a bipartisan U.S. congressional delegation in Copenhagen sought to reassure Denmark and Greenland of their support.
The leader of the delegation, U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said that the current rhetoric around Greenland is causing concern across the Danish kingdom. Coons said that he wants to de-escalate the situation.
“I hope that the people of the Kingdom of Denmark do not abandon their faith in the American people,” he said in Copenhagen, adding that the U.S. has respect for Denmark and NATO “for all we’ve done together.”
Meanwhile, Danish Maj. Gen. Søren Andersen, leader of the Joint Arctic Command, told The Associated Press that Denmark doesn't expect the U.S. military to attack Greenland, or any other NATO ally, and that European troops were recently deployed to Nuuk for Arctic defense training.
He said that the goal isn’t to send a message to the Trump administration, even through the White House hasn’t ruled out taking the territory by force.
“I will not go into the political part, but I will say that I would never expect a NATO country to attack another NATO country,” he told the AP on Saturday aboard a Danish military vessel docked in Nuuk. “For us, for me, it’s not about signaling. It is actually about training military units, working together with allies.”
The Danish military organized a planning meeting Friday in Greenland with NATO allies, including the U.S., to discuss Arctic security on the alliance’s northern flank in the face of a potential Russian threat. The Americans were also invited to participate in Operation Arctic Endurance in Greenland in the coming days, Andersen said.
In his 2½ years as a commander in Greenland, Andersen said that he hasn't seen any Chinese or Russian combat vessels or warships, despite Trump saying that they were off the island's coast.
But in the unlikely event of American troops using force on Danish soil, Andersen confirmed a Cold War-era law governing Danish rules of engagement.
“But you are right that it is Danish law that a Danish soldier, if attacked, has the obligation to fight back,” he said.
Thousands of people marched through Copenhagen, many of them carrying Greenland’s flag, on Saturday afternoon in support of the self-governing island. Others held signs with slogans like “Make America Smart Again” and “Hands Off.”
“This is important for the whole world,” Danish protester Elise Riechie told the AP as she held Danish and Greenlandic flags. “There are many small countries. None of them are for sale.”
Coons’ comments contrasted with statements emanating from the White House. Trump has sought to justify his calls for a U.S. takeover by repeatedly saying that China and Russia have their own designs on Greenland, which holds vast untapped reserves of critical minerals.
“There are no current security threats to Greenland,” Coons said.
Trump has insisted for months that the U.S. should control Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, and said earlier this week that anything less than the Arctic island being in U.S. hands would be “unacceptable.”
During an unrelated event at the White House about rural health care, he recounted Friday how he had threatened European allies with tariffs on pharmaceuticals.
“I may do that for Greenland, too,” Trump said, before his announcement Saturday about his targeted tariffs. “I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland, because we need Greenland for national security. So I may do that."
He had not previously mentioned using tariffs to try to force the issue.
Earlier this week, the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland met in Washington with U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
That encounter didn’t resolve the deep differences, but did produce an agreement to set up a working group — on whose purpose Denmark and the White House then offered sharply diverging public views.
European leaders have said that it's only for Denmark and Greenland to decide on matters concerning the territory, and Denmark said this week that it was increasing its military presence in Greenland in cooperation with allies.
“There is almost no better ally to the United States than Denmark,” Coons said. “If we do things that cause Danes to question whether we can be counted on as a NATO ally, why would any other country seek to be our ally or believe in our representations?”
Niemann reported from Copenhagen, Denmark, and Boak from West Palm Beach, Fla. Associated Press writer Stefanie Dazio in Berlin contributed to this report.
People march during a pro- Greenlanders demonstration, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
A patch of the Joint Arctic Command is seen on o jacket of Major General Søren Andersen standing onboard a military vessel HDMS Knud Rasmussen of the Royal Danish Navy docked in Nuuk, Greenland, on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
People gather for a pro- Greenlanders demonstration, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
People gather for a pro- Greenlanders demonstration, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
People march during a pro- Greenlanders demonstration, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
Icicles hang from the roof of the US consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A Danish serviceman walks in front of Joint Arctic Command center in Nuuk, Greenland, on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Senator Chris Coons from the Democratic Party speaks during a press conference with the American delegation, consisting of senators and members of the House of Representatives, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
