A Wheel Bearing Cost Toyota’s New Dakar Hilux a Podium

Toyota’s redesigned DKR GR Hilux led the 2026 Dakar Rally on debut, but a late wheel bearing failure ended Henk Lategan’s podium run.

The best Toyota Gazoo Racing crew finished eighth, as Nasser Al-Attiyah and Fabian Lurquin won the rally for Dacia Sandriders in 48 hours, 56 minutes and 53 seconds. Toby Price and Armand Monleón were Toyota’s top finishers, 52 minutes and 7 seconds behind, with American pair Seth Quintero and Andrew Short ninth. Lategan and Brett Cummings, who had been running second overall until Stage 11, came home 21st. The Hilux isn’t sold in the United States, but Quintero and Short gave Toyota’s works team a US crew.

The truck was all new for 2026. Toyota’s UK magazine said the Ultimate-category prototype has a new tubular chassis with more torsional stiffness and less weight, easier access to its mechanical parts for servicing, a reinforced transmission and styling inspired by the ninth-generation road-going Hilux. It was developed by Overdrive, the team behind the outgoing car, and privateers will be able to buy it from the second half of 2026.

The new truck started well, with Quintero and Short winning Stage 2, the run from Yanbu through the Hejaz Mountains to AlUla. They beat Lategan by 1 minute and 42 seconds for a Toyota one-two, with Price fourth. Toyota’s stage report had Quintero just seven seconds off the overall lead that night. Quintero then lost more than an hour to a series of punctures on Stage 3.

Lategan and Cummings won Stage 4, the first marathon stage, on January 7 by 7 minutes and 3 seconds over Al-Attiyah. That win put them in the overall lead by 3 minutes and 55 seconds. They were still second overall going into Stage 11, when the wheel bearing problem ended their podium hopes. Lategan finished third on the final stage, 13 seconds from the stage win.

The result was a step back from 2025, when Lategan and Cummings finished second. "It was not meant to be our year, it seemed," Lategan said after the finish in Yanbu, according to Toyota’s end-of-rally release. Quintero was more upbeat about the new truck. "The biggest positive is how the car performed," he said.

The Dakar opens the five-round World Rally-Raid Championship, which ends with the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge from November 22 to 27.

The Toyota Report Take

Two stage wins and the overall lead on debut show the new Hilux has the pace, and a failed wheel bearing is the kind of fault a first-year car is expected to suffer. Toyota now has most of a season of data on the truck, and if it has fixed its reliability, the 2027 Dakar should be a fight for the win rather than a recovery drive.