Jan 2 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's first winner ‌Yazheed Al-Rajhi will try to defend his Dakar Rally title when the two-week event starts in the desert kingdom ‌on Saturday, with Toyota's 2025 runner-up Henk Lategan predicting the closest battle yet.

The annual endurance challenge, run over 13 ‌stages and some 8,000km entirely in Saudi Arabia for the seventh year in a row, kicks off with a short prologue around Yanbu on the Red Sea coast before a 305km special stage on Sunday.