2026 Rally-Raid Portugal: Old School Skills Sees Sanders Take Soggy Stage 1

2026 World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) round two, BP Ultimate Rally-Raid Portugal, sees Red Bull KTM’s Daniel Sanders use old school enduro skills for the win and race lead in wet conditions.

It’s challenging to ride in but we have to say it is awesome to see the conditions at the 2026 Rally Raid Portugal on stage one. Wet? Yep. And that meant some old school survival skills and smart thinking, plus, it must be said, the enduro skills coming to the fore to not just get to the final timing beam but revel in it.

And that is exactly what we love about Daniel Sanders who sailed (literally) on his Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) to the win on stage one today. The reigning world champion set the fastest time at the end of 180 km against the clock in Grândola, putting 2′10″ into Tosha Schareina and 2′18″ into the Spaniard's Monster Energy Honda HRC teammate Adrien Van Beveren.

Brabec not so happy

Honda's Ricky Brabec was sixth, behind Ross Branch on the Hero P5, and one of the riders questioning the two parts of stage one which ran like normal and then concluded with a run through the prologue again for the live TV feed – which is kind of cool to watch but a bit off key for rally-raid and Brabec pointed at the pointlessness of it.

Another Honda with Skyler Howes on top were P7 at 6′47″, KTM's Luciano Benavides eighth at 7′06″ and Edgar Canet ninth at 8′10″ which is a big gap already – Brabec and Canet both took two additional minutes for speeding today as well.

Good local knowledge of the terrain helped Portuguese riders finish with great results overall and in Rally2 class. Bruno Santos (BS - Frutas Patrícia Pilar) outgunned Neels Theric and his Kove in R2 (+2′56″) but claimed fourth scratch for a best-ever W2RC stage result. Meanwhile, his compatriot Gonçalo Amaral (Wingmotor) put 6′58″ into his brother and teammate Salvador Amaral in Rally3.

2026 Rally-Raid Portugal Stage 1 Results:

Photo Credit: Edo Photo