Daniel Sanders has been left bemoaning "silly mistakes" which have allowed his two main Honda rivals race past him and relegate the champion into third place in the Dakar Rally.
Australian leader Sanders saw his advantage evaporate after the first part of a long and difficult 417km fourth 'marathon' stage over two days, in which he could only finish fifth behind a Monster Energy Honda Team 1-2-3, headed by a second consecutive stage win for Spain's Tosha Schareina.
Benefiting from the time bonuses he received by opening the rocky route on Wednesday, and then riding together with his teammate Ricky Brabec for the last 200km, Schareina won the stage by just six seconds from his American pal after a four-and-a-half hour slog. Skyler Howes completed the Honda domination in third.
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It was enough to put the Spaniard into the lead alongside Brabec -- remarkably, both of them have the exact same time of 16 hours 45 minutes 40 seconds after five days of racing across the Saudi desert -- now both 1min 24sec ahead of 'Chucky' Sanders, who could only finish fifth on his Red Bull KTM.
Brabec is the only rider to have stood on every stage podium so far, but last year's runner-up Schareina leads on the strength of his two stage wins and cuts an ominous figure for Sanders, as the only man to beat the Australian world champ during his all-conquering 2025 campaign at the Rally of Morocco.
"It was a really demanding stage. I just made some silly mistakes in the navigation, got confused on a couple of notes when it was pretty much straightforward," said Sanders.
"I just over-complicated it, so I lost a lot of time before the refuel and after that, I just tried to push and make up time. I felt better in the last half and didn't make really many mistakes in a big push to the end. It was a really long, draining day again, but the bike's okay.
"I got to the refuel, and everyone had cuts in their tyres and pretty destroyed wheels. So that last half, I just tried to manage it, protect my tyres as much as possible and not push too much in the rocks."
The marathon stage is made extra demanding as the riders are left to fend for themselves overnight in the desert, with only a sleeping bag and a tent in the camp and surviving on the rations given to them by race organisers.
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"It's the spirit of the Dakar. It's adventure, staying out here by ourselves, instead of the hotel and the five-star camp fire, this is the real Dakar stage and it's good fun," said Sanders.
In the cars race, Saudi Arabia's reigning champion Yazeed Al-Rajhi withdrew on Wednesday as South African Henk Lategan dominated the stage for Toyota to take over at the top.
Australia two-time bike winner Toby Price and his Spanish navigator Armand Monleon were seventh on the day in their Toyota, and are 16th overall.
