2025 Dakar Rally Stage 8: Hero MotoSports’ Nacho Cornejo jumps up in overall rankings

Stage 8 of the 2025 Dakar Rally took the competitors to Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh with a 487km special stage and a 205km liaison. Hero MotoSports Team Rally rider Jose Ignacio Cornejo continued his forward progress as he gained one spot in the overall rankings.

Cornejo held a strong position early in the stage, managing to be the provisional leader, but as the kilometres ticked by, he started to lose time to the competition. At the very start of the stage, at the 48km mark, Nacho Cornejo took the lead from Red Bull KTM’s Daniel Sanders but soon lost it to Monster Energy Honda’s Ricky Brabec, who started behind them.

By the 70km mark, Ricky Brabec had extended his lead over Nacho to 31 seconds, with Cornejo now trailing behind. Luciano Benavides also entered the fray, putting pressure on the leading group, though Cornejo maintained his place in the top ranks. As the race progressed, Cornejo’s time gap widened but he maintained his time and was under 2 minutes until the half point. Though Cornejo remained competitive, the tight competition saw him gradually losing ground to riders like Monster Energy Honda’s Tosha Schareina.

By the end, Corejo finished the stage in 9th place but reduced his overall position by one place and now trailing the leader by under 54 minutes. Speaking after the stage, Cornejo added, “We are done with Stage 8 and it was an incredibly fast one! We had a nice ride today and I am feeling very confident on the bike. I lost a little bit of time but it wasn’t a major setback. I am looking forward to Stage 9 tomorrow and we will keep battling it day by day”.

Tomorrow’s Stage 9 will take competitors east from Riyadh to Haradh covering close to 600km in total. It will allow riders to maintain top speeds and should bring a change in the standings because of its nature.