January 8, 2026 — KOVE has completed Dakar 2026’s first Marathon Stage (SS4 + SS5) with a second consecutive R2 stage victory, securing back-to-back wins in the category and delivering a clean finish through one of the rally’s toughest reliability checkpoints.

SS5 marked the second day of the Marathon, a two-day sequence that places maximum load on both rider and machine, with no external service support between stages. Across the two days, nine riders retired, underlining the intensity of the first major durability test of this year’s event.

A Reliability Statement

After the R2 stage win on SS4, KOVE repeated the result on SS5 to complete the first Marathon Stage exactly as intended, fast, controlled, and stable across long distance and harsh terrain. The team’s Dakar program continues to focus on real-world verification under maximum stress conditions, where consistency and mechanical resilience determine the result as much as outright pace.