Rally Dakar once again showed its most extreme side in the fifth stage of the Ultimate category, with an accident that left Spanish driver Jesús Calleja and his navigator, Argentine Eduardo Blanco, out of the competition. The Santana they were driving suffered a violent high-speed rollover and was left completely destroyed, forcing the Spanish team to withdraw immediately.
The incident occurred after kilometer 271, when the car was moving along a straight section under a cloud of dust raised by other competitors. In that context, a deep pothole that was not indicated in the route notes caught Calleja and Blanco by surprise. The area was classified as "danger 3", but it did not appear in the roadbook, a detail that proved decisive for the outcome.
Until that moment, the crew's performance had been improving steadily. In the previous stage, they had achieved their best result in the competition, with 26th place, which reflected a gradual adaptation to the rigors of the desert. Everything was cut short when the Santana hit a rut, was thrown into the air, and rolled over several times before coming to a stop.
