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.
Click to Gallery
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)
BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AP) — Colombians milled into voting stations on Sunday in the first round of the South American nation’s presidential election, choosing between candidates with radically diverging visions for the future of peace in a country haunted by decades of armed conflict.
The vote, seen as a referendum on outgoing President Gustavo Petro’s policies, comes 10 years after Colombia signed an historic peace pact with guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
That agreement offered hope to break the nation out of a vicious cycle of fighting between rebel groups and the government but violence has roared back since then, coming to a head in the lead-up to the presidential vote. Criminal groups have increasingly launched drone strikes, armed attacks have plagued the race and last June, 39-year-old politician and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay was fatally shot at a political rally.
In a country where the fight for peace has long been a part of the political ethos, the question of how to address the conflict is once again dividing the country.
The vote is slated to send a message to Latin America at a time voters are increasingly ditching leaders that pitched progressive policies, like providing opportunities to youths and rooting out corruption, to solve security ails, turning instead to heavy-handed security crackdowns like El Salvador's. It also comes as the Trump administration is placing renewed pressure on the region.
“Today's election isn't just important for us, it's important for all of Latin America,” said Juan Acevedo, a 62-year-old sociologist walking out of a voting station in Colombia's capital on Sunday morning. “Whoever wins here will suggest to the region if progressive policies will continue or if things are going to return to the right.”
There are 11 candidates running for president, but the election has basically turned into a three-horse race.
Senator and peace-builder Ivan Cepeda — a Petro ally — has led the polls and promises to carry on with Petro's “total peace” initiative to negotiate with the country’s remaining rebel groups and sign peace agreements with them in an effort to resolve the persistent crisis.
While the peace plan has largely failed as criminals have taken advantage of ceasefires with the government, Cepeda and Petro have maintained strong support among many because of progressive policies pushed forward under Petro, such as boosting the minimum wage.
Running against Cepeda are Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia, who have vowed to come down on armed groups with a heavier hand.
De la Espriella — a bombastic lawyer known as “The Tiger” — has particularly gained traction among voters in recent weeks for pitching himself as an outsider keen on emulating the heavy-handed tactics used in El Salvador’s war on gangs, which sharply reduced gang violence but fueled accusations of human rights abuses.
Valencia is considered the political protege of Colombia's former president and strongman Álvaro Uribe, who governed from 2002 to 2010 with strong support from the United States and whose government beat back FARC rebels in an offensive that took a massive civilian toll.
Both de la Espriella and Valencia have touted their affinity for U.S. President Donald Trump even as he has taken a more aggressive stance toward Latin America than any U.S. president in decades and has pressured nations like Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico to more forcefully crack down on criminal groups.
If no candidate wins at least 50% of the vote — something extremely rare in Colombia — the two top vote-getters will face a runoff in June.
Maria Eugenia, a 57-year-old seamstress who was stitching a pair of jeans on Friday in downtown Bogotá, Colombia's capital, said she welcomed an all-out offensive on an expanding slate of criminal groups, regardless of the human cost.
While she approved of Petro’s pushes to improve the country's medical infrastructure, she said she was voting for de la Espriella because violence in rural areas of the country has gotten out of hand. She said negotiating peace pacts was simply “rewarding” armed groups.
“Of course, whenever you come down with a heavy hand, there’s always going to be debate,” she said. “But some people are going to have to fall to clean up what needs to be cleaned.”
Others, like Acevedo, the sociologist strolling out of a polling station on Sunday with packs of other voters, said a security crackdown like the one promoted by de la Espriella would only be returning to past military campaigns that he said only reinforced Colombia's cycle of violence.
He said he planned to vote for Cepeda, adding that while the government hasn't done a perfect job — failing to pass ambitious reforms and follow through on promises to reduce violence — it was better to continue pushing forward with their political coalition's efforts to take a different approach in addressing the country's violence.
He added that his main critique of Petro's administration was the power grabs made by criminal groups as they negotiated with the government. He said he hoped that if Cepeda won, he would strike a better balance between negotiating peace and maintaining control over those groups.
“We're a country that has lived through 60 years of conflict,” Acevedo said. “The danger here is that we return to the times where everyone is saying that the only way to solve our problems is with bullets and more war.”
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
A voter marks a ballot during the presidential election in Bogota, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Supporters of presidential candidate Ivan Cepeda of the ruling Historic Pact coalition gather outside the polling station where he voted during the presidential election in Bogota, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Presidential candidate Ivan Cepeda of the ruling Historic Pact coalition gestures to supporters after voting during the presidential election in Bogota, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Voters check polling information during the presidential election in Bogota, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
President Gustavo Petro shows a ballot during the presidential election in Bogota, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Voters line up at a polling station during the presidential election in Bogota, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Presidential candidate Abelardo de la Espriella of the Defenders of the Motherland movement depart a polling station after voting during the presidential election in Barranquilla, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
Soldiers patrol as voters arrive at a polling station during the presidential election in Barranquilla, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
Electoral workers set up a voting center in preparation for Sunday's presidential election in Bogota, Colombia, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A man rides his motorcycle past the ruins of homes destroyed five months earlier in an attack by dissidents of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in Buenos Aires, Cauca, Colombia, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.(AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)
Presidential candidate Sen. Paloma Valencia of the Democratic Center party waves supporters during a campaign rally in Bogota, Colombia, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
Presidential candidate Abelardo de la Espriella of the Defenders of the Motherland movement and his running mate Jose Manuel Restrepo, left, raise their fit from behind a bullet proof booth during a campaign rally in Barranquilla, Colombia, Saturday, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
Sen. Ivan Cepeda, presidential candidate of the ruling Historic Pact coalition, speaks to supporters during a campaign rally in Bogota, Colombia, Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
