The event returned to the FIA World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) calendar after a one-year absence and produced a thrilling finish after five pulsating days of action across sinuous and demanding gravel tracks in the Andes foothills region of northwestern Argentina.

With the race wide open heading into the final sprint to the finish in San Juan, overnight leader Quintero overcame a brief stoppage early in the special with a puncture to finish third on the day and take the top step of the overall podium for the first time in the W2RC. His winning margin was 1min 55sec after nearly 16 hours of racing.

Quintero said: “It was an amazing week. Worked my butt off all week long and finally got the win for all the guys that have been supporting me for so long. To get second in Portugal and first here and now we’re really in the fight for the championship. We got two flats today, so I just drove as hard as I could the whole way home and came away with the win.”

Toyota team-mates Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings won the last stage and narrowly got the better of the Dacia Sandriders Team’s Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah and Fabian Lurquin to snatch second place. A three-minute time penalty for a late check-in on day four proved very costly for the South African.

Lategan said: “A bitter-sweet ending for us. We finished second but congratulations to Seth and Andrew for winning it. It’s good having a 1-2 for Toyota. The car was performing really well and we gave a big push today to try and get back into the lead. It wasn’t meant to be. We were quickest on the road but the three-minute penalty from yesterday really cost us in the end. That’s how it goes sometimes.”

Al-Attiyah’s consolation for finishing third was closing the gap on Dacia team-mate Sébastien Loeb to an unofficial three points in the W2RC Drivers’ Championship. The Frenchman finished fourth overall with navigator Edouard Boulanger, but Toyota Gazoo Racing trimmed Dacia’s lead in the W2RC Manufacturers’ Championship.

“It was an amazing rally,” said Al-Attiyah. “We finished third overall and lost a possible win in this rally. I am happy to be on the podium again but we need to work now for the championship.”

Toyota Gazoo Racing SA’s Saood Variawa and French navigator François Cazalet overcame a series of punctures and a time loss with a drive shaft issue and another puncture late on the final stage to finish fifth in an SVR-run Toyota.

Opening stage winner Eryk Goczal and his Polish team-mate Szymon Gospodarczyk lost an hour on the final stage in their Energylandia Rally Team Toyota and slipped from a possible sixth to 13th. They broke one drive shaft and then a second one failed but switching a front one to the rear enabled them to complete the event. Overdrive Racing’s Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk took full advantage to grab sixth place in their Toyota Hilux GR.

Ford Racing won the fourth stage, courtesy of Carlos Sainz and Dani Oliveras, but an earlier belt failure and a hefty amount of time penalties cost the Spaniard a top finish. He was classified in 29th.

American team-mate Mitch Guthrie failed to finish the last stage but Joan Roma was fourth quickest on stage five on his way to eighth place, the Spaniard sandwiched between Marcelo Gastaldi (Toyota) and Sebastián Halpern (Mini), who were not registered for the W2RC.

Thirty-eight crews started the third round of the 2026 FIA World Rally-Raid Championship, with 31 registered for W2RC points.

First blood through the opening loop stage of 339.42km close to San Juan went to Eryk Goczal. The young Pole pipped the Ford Racing duo of Guthrie and Sainz to the stage win by less than a minute to snatch the lead.

“The board on the finish line showed number one,” said Goczal. “I was completely surprised because this was how I drove the whole Dakar and the whole Rally Portugal. We’ve been working hard on the suspension with Reiger and it just worked.”

Quintero, João Ferreira, Lategan and Variawa followed in a quartet of Toyotas, with Al-Attiyah and Loeb already 5min 57sec and 9min 37sec adrift in the leading Dacias.

Stage two ran from San Juan to San Rafael and included a competitive section of just 127.43km. Al-Attiyah snatched the stage win by 18 seconds from Overdrive Racing’s new recruit Kevin Benavides with Variawa just three seconds further behind. A 10-second speeding penalty later pushed Benavides down to third on the day.

Fourth place for Ferreira enabled the Portuguese to take a nine-second outright lead over Quintero with Variawa, Lategan and Al-Attiyah moving into the top five. First stage winner Goczal lost time with two flat tyres.

“The stage reminded me a lot of the race we have in our championship in Botswana,” said Variawa.

Stage three ran for 407.73km and looped around San Rafael to a maximum altitude of 2,700 metres. The longest special of the rally included a section through the dunes of Nihuil.

Lategan opened his account with a maiden stage win in Argentina: the South African beat Loeb by 1min 36sec and edged into an outright lead of 1min 39sec over team-mate Quintero, who borrowed a damper off the stage winner after surviving an earlier puncture.

Sainz suffered an early belt failure and a head-on collision in the Nihuil dunes between Ferreira and Dacia’s Lucas Moraes caused substantial damage to both Toyotas. Ferreira sustained steering damage and pulled out 30km after the incident, while Moraes suffered broken rear suspension. They both incurred 16-hour stage penalties as a result. Marek Goczal (accident) and Lucío Alvarez also failed to finish the day and incurred similar penalties.

Moraes said: “In the first section of dunes, we had around five or six kilometres off piste. It was going well. We were slightly too far left but managed to find the waypoint. We turned, thinking we were on the correct line and, suddenly, Ferreira appeared and we collided. I apologised to them because it was a big impact. We were all okay.”

Al-Attiyah duly moved up to third in the general classification, ahead of Variawa, Loeb and Ford’s Roma and Guthrie.

The penultimate 305.70km stage was slightly delayed and ran between San Rafael and San Juan to over 3,000 metres. Sainz benefitted from a favourable start position to win the special by half a minute from Eryk Goczal.  

Al-Attiyah came home in third but Quintero took a seven-second lead into the final day with Lategan well-placed in third to mount a late challenge for victory until he incurred a three-minute penalty for a late check-in at a time control. Ferreira’s chance of a stage podium was thwarted by a 20-minute penalty for not respecting his neutralisation time. He eventually finished 27th.

Variawa sustained four flat tyres and had to borrow rubber from Ferreira, Roma was slightly delayed early in the stage and there were hefty time penalties for Toyota’s Akira Miura and Ford’s Denis Krotov for failing to finish. Alvarez’s woes continued with a late shock absorber failure and more time penalties.

The final stage looped through mountainous terrain for 339.71km to the north of San Juan. Sainz stopped for around 28 minutes after 78km and overnight leader Quintero was also delayed briefly after 101km with a puncture.

With Sainz running behind, Al-Attiyah ran the risk of opening the road and losing time if he passed Eryk Goczal. He didn’t bargain for a brief unscheduled stop after 253km either with the resultant loss of around two and a half minutes. That put him 1min 31sec behind Quintero and a second adrift of Lategan heading into the sprint to the finish.

Lategan duly claimed the stage win but Quintero did enough to snatch a narrow victory from the South African and Al-Attiyah. Guthrie and Miura were last stage retirements.

Walkner wins Challenger class; Pinto top W2RC finisher

Matthias Walkner and Pablo Moreno claimed a narrow 29-second victory in the Challenger class but the former Dakar motorcycle winner was not registered for the W2RC in his BBR Motorsport Taurus. The Austrian finished in an excellent 10th overall.

That enabled second-placed Alexandre Pinto and Bernardo Oliveira to add to their victory at round two in Portugal with another crucial haul of W2RC points in their Odyssey Academy by BBR Taurus T3 Max.

Puck Klaassen and her navigator Augusto Sanz came into the week trailing the absent Pau Navarro and Jan Rosa by just two points and the South African was able to finish third (second in W2RC) in her G Rally Team G-ECKO after claiming two stage wins. She now leads the series from Pinto by an unofficial nine points.

Nazareno Lopez and Fernando Acosta finished fourth but were not registered for the W2RC.

Pinto was comfortably quicker than Lopez and Walkner on the opening Challenger stage. Klaassen held fourth but dropped 13 minutes to the Portuguese pace-setter with power steering woes. Pedro Gonçalves was handed a 20-hour penalty for changing his engine block, in addition to a chunk of time penalties for not completing the day’s stage.

Pinto increased his lead over Walkner in stage two with another win and Klaassen moved up to third. Gonçalves suffered an accident after 115.74km of the special and was the first retirement in his BBR Motorsport Taurus with navigator Sébastien Delaunay.

Klaassen overcame a double puncture to earn a vital victory on the third stage and closed the gap on the category-leading Pinto to 11min 05sec. Walkner retained second.

The Dutch girl was again on top in stage four; she beat Walkner by six seconds on a stage where Pinto lost eight minutes and the lead to the Austrian former Dakar winner. Walkner headed into the final day with a lead of 3min 37sec and he held on to the finish.

Sidabras takes SSV win after late Ferioli disqualification

Argentina’s Jeremias Gonzalez Ferioli and Gonzalo Rinaldi looked to have cruised to the top of the W2RC’s SSV standings with a comfortable class victory in their Can-Am Factory Team Maverick R.

With rivals João Monteiro, Kyle Chaney and Francisco Lopez absent from the South American adventure, Ferioli took full advantage. He won three of the five stages to initially earn a winning margin of 1hr 53min 39sec over Lithuania’s Mindaugas Sidabras and his navigator Ernestas Česokas.

But the Argentine was dramatically disqualified late on Friday evening when the front lower wishbone of the Maverick was found to exceed its maximum homologated weight. The Can-Am Team has lodged an appeal against the decision.

Sidabras was awarded the victory and Spaniard Juan Piferrer teamed up with Xavier Blanco to finish second ahead of José Óscar Nogueira, who was not registered for the W2RC. Pedro MacDowell and his navigator Daniel Spolidorio retired from the Can-Am-dominated class on the last day.

Ferioli led the SSVs through the first stage and opened up a lead of 7min 44sec over fellow Argentinian Manuel Andujar. MacDowell, Sidabras and Piferrer lost a lot of time to the South American and held fourth, fifth and sixth.

Ferioli made it two wins from two by finishing 11min 24sec ahead of Sidabras in stage two. The Argentine saw his lead grow to 21min 09sec. Piferrer finished third and climbed to fourth overall behind Sidabras and Andujar. The latter was handed some time back by rally officials after stopping to render assistance to Gonçalves after his crash. MacDowell incurred hefty time penalties for failing to finish the stage.

Ferioli made it a hattrick of wins with the fastest time in stage three and was able to increase his lead over Andujar to 35min 14sec. Sidabras, Piferrer and MacDowell were second, third and fourth of the W2RC-registered runners behind the runaway leader.

A resurgent MacDowell topped the times in SS4 but Ferioli safely negotiated the special in third place to take a massive 1hr 46min 55sec advantage over Sidabras into the final day. Andujar was sidelined before Ferioli was second quickest on the last day after incurring a 10-minute time penalty for missing a wheel.  

Defender Rally Team’s Peterhansel and Metge on top in Stock

Multiple Dakar winner Stéphane Peterhansel and navigator Michaël Metge stayed clear of trouble through the final stage to secure a 9min 18sec victory in the Stock class. The Defender Dakar D7x-R crew finished the stage in second position to stay clear of team-mate and runner-up Rokas Baciuška and his navigator Oriol Vidal.

The American pairing of Sara Price and Saydiie Gray crewed the third of the Defender Rally Team cars and recovered from a fourth stage accident to finish third but Baciuška continues to lead the Stock Drivers’ Championship.

The three Defenders were closely matched on the opening San Juan loop through the Andes foothills with Peterhansel edging the stage win from Baciuška by just 10 seconds. Price finished 3min 35sec behind the Frenchman after incurring a three-minute penalty for an overtaking violation.

Baciuška beat Peterhansel by 42 seconds on the second special to take a 32-second lead. Price was a little over two minutes behind.

The Lithuanian looked to have earned his second successive stage win on the third special until he was handed 12 minutes of time penalties for speeding. That gifted the win to Price, although Peterhansel grabbed a slender 40-second overall lead.

The Frenchman strengthened his advantage on the demanding fourth stage: he beat Baciuška by 7min 35sec to lead by 11min 36sec. Price gently rolled her Defender on a sharp right-hand bend but her team-mates were running behind, offered assistance and she only dropped 42 minutes. Peterhansel held on to secure the win on day five.

Action in the FIA World Rally-Raid Championship continues with the Rally of Morocco on September 28th-October 3rd.

2026 Desafío Ruta 40 – final result:

1. Seth Quintero (USA)/Andrew Short (USA) Toyota Hilux GR                                              15hr 55min 38sec

2. Henk Lategan (RSA)/Brett Cummings (RSA) Toyota Hilux GR                                            15hr 57min 33sec

3. Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah (QAT)/Fabian Lurquin (BEL) Dacia Sandrider                               15hr 58min 04sec

4. Sébastien Loeb (FRA)/Edouard Boulanger (FRA) Dacia Sandrider                                     15hr 59min 32sec

5. Saood Variawa (RSA)/François Cazalet (FRA) Toyota Hilux IMT Evo                                  16hr 27min 42sec

6. Yazeed Al-Rajhi (KSA)/Timo Gottschalk (GER) Toyota Hilux GR                                         16hr 47min 29sec      

7. Marcelo Gastaldi (BRA)/Carlos Sachs (BRA) Toyota Hilux IMT Evo                                    16hr 50min 23sec*

8. Joan Roma (ESP)/Alex Haro (ESP) Ford Raptor                                                                   16hr 56min 25sec

9. Sebastián Halpern (ARG)/Eduardo Pulenta (ARG) X-Raid Mini JCW Rally 3.0i                   17hr 01min 26sec*

10. Matthias Walkner (AUT)/Pablo Moreno (ESP) Taurus T3 Max                                        17hr 13min 12sec*

11. Alexandre Pinto (POR)/Bernardo Oliveira (POR) Taurus T3 Max                                     17hr 13min 41sec

12. Puck Klaassen (NED)/Augusto Sanz (ARG) G Rally Team G-ECKO                                    17hr 16min 51sec

13. Eryk Goczal (POL)/Szymon Gospodarczyk (POL) Toyota Hilux DKR Evo                           17hr 31min 35sec

14. Hernán Garcés (CHI)/Juan Pablo Latrach (CHI) Toyota Hilux GR                                      17hr 49min 45sec

15. Martin Prokop (CZE)/Viktor Chytka (CZE) Ford Raptor                                                    17hr 58min 43sec

16. Kevin Benavides (ARG)/Lisandro Sisterna (ARG) Toyota Hilux GR                                   18hr 10min 41sec*

17. Stéphane Peterhansel (FRA)/Michaël Metge (FRA) Defender Dakar D7X-R                    18hr 11min 12sec

18. Rokas Baciuška (LTU)/Oriol Vidal (ESP) Defender Dakar D7X-R                                       18hr 20min 30sec

19. Sara Price (USA)/Saydiie Gray (USA) Defender Dakar D7X-R                                           19hr 06min 04sec

20. Kees Koolen (NED)/Wouter Rosegaar (NED) Ford Raptor                                                20hr 12min 57sec

21. Mindaugas Sidabras (LTU)/Ernestas Česokas (LTU) Can-Am Maverick R                        20hr 14min 44sec

22. Juan Piferrer (ESP)/Xavier Blanco (ESP) Can-Am Maverick R                                           20hr 33min 14sec

23. José Óscar Nogueira (POR)/Arcélio Couto (POR) Can-Am Maverick R                             21hr 00min 01sec*

24. Nazareno Lopez (ARG)/Fernando Acosta (ARG) Taurus T3 Max                                      29hr 24min 44sec*

25. Marcos Baumgart (BRA)/Kleber Cincea (BRA) Toyota Hilux IMT Evo                              30hr 44min 54sec      

26. Cristian Baumgart (BRA)/Luis Felipe Eckel (BRA) Toyota Hilux IMT Evo                          32hr 32min 37sec

27. Joāo Ferreira (POR)/Filipe Palmeiro (POR) Toyota Hilux IMT Evo                                    35hr 56min 46sec

28. Lucio Alvarez (ARG)/Bernando Graue (ARG) Toyota Hilux IMT Evo                                 36hr 00min 36sec

29. Carlos Sainz (ESP)/Dani Oliveras (ESP) Ford Raptor                                                         36hr 07min 37sec

30. Marek Goczal (POL)/Maciej Marton (POL) Toyota Hilux DKR Evo                                   36hr 15min 02sec

31. Lucas Moraes (BRA)/Dennis Zenz (GER) Dacia Sandrider                                                36hr 28min 34sec

Mitch Guthrie (USA)/Kellon Walch (USA) Ford Raptor                                                          RETIRED – SS5

Akira Miura (JPN)/Armand Monleón (ESP) Toyota Hilux GR                                                  RETIRED – SS5

Pedro Macdowell (BRA)/Daniel Spolidorio (BRA) Can-Am Maverick R                                  RETIRED – SS5

Denis Krotov (KGZ)/Konstantin Zhiltsov (KGZ) Ford Raptor                                                   RETIRED – SS5

Manuel Andujar (ARG)/Cesar Andrés Frini (ARG) Can-Am Maverick R                                 RETIRED – SS5*

Pedro Gonçalves (POR)/Sébastien Delaunay (FRA) Taurus T3 Max                                       RETIRED – SS2

Jeremias Gonzalez Ferioli (ARG)/Gonzalo Rinaldi (ARG) Can-Am Maverick R                       DISQUALIFIED            

*denotes not registered for W2RC

Rally leaders

SS1             Eryk Goczal (Toyota)

SS2             João Ferreira (Toyota)

SS3             Henk Lategan (Toyota)

SS4-5         Seth Quintero (Toyota)

Stage winners

SS1             Eryk Goczal (Toyota)

SS2             Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah (Dacia)

SS3             Henk Lategan (Toyota)

SS4             Carlos Sainz (Ford)

SS5             Henk Lategan (Toyota)