Isle of Man TT racer James Hillier has been forced to retire from this year’s edition of the Dakar Rally after the opening stage due to injury.
Hillier, an Isle of Man TT winner in the 2013 Lightweight race, was entered in the Dakar for the third time at this year’s edition of the Saudi Arabia-based rally raid event. He opened his rally with a 52nd-place finish in the Prologue, and followed that up with 59th in Stage 1.
But that opening stage finish came following a crash at around the 250th of a total 518 stage kilometres.
Hillier hurt his arm in the crash, but decided to continue and finish the stage. Afterwards, it was discovered that he had broken his arm, and he has been forced to retire as a result.
Hillier made his Dakar debut in 2023, riding a GasGas. He crashed on the sixth stage on that occasion and dislocated his shoulder, but was able to continue and made the finish. He also finished in his second attempt, in 2025 aboard a Kove, despite breaking his nose on the first stage and being forced to miss the 48-hour Chrono stage.
2025, when he was again entered on a Kove, is therefore Hillier’s first retirement from the Dakar.
At the front of the rally, Daniel Sanders now leads the 2026 Dakar after the second stage. His 20-year-old Red Bull KTM teammate, Spain’s Edgar Canet, won both the prologue and Stage 1 to lead after Sunday, becoming – in his debut RallyGP year – the youngest rider to win a stage overall in the Dakar’s history.
Canet now sits second to 2025 winner Sanders in the overall classification, 30 seconds adrift, with HRC’s Ricky Brabec currently rounding out the podium positions with a gap of 2’18’’ to the lead.
