Carlos Sainz became the first repeat winner of this year’s Dakar Rally as he beat Nasser Al-Attiyah to extend his advantage overall to just under six minutes.
X-raid Mini Buggy driver Sainz came into the stage with a 3m03s lead over Toyota rival Al-Attiyah, and looked set to drop further time as he lost two-and-a-half-minutes in the opening 50km of Thursday’s 353km Al Ula-Hail test.
But the two-time World Rally champion recovered to take a slender lead at the 250km and ended up pulling out 2m56s over Al-Attiyah over the remainder of the stage.
It means Sainz now has an enhanced advantage of 5m59s in the general classification as the legendary rally nears its halfway point.
Stephane Peterhansel lost some three minutes in his X-raid Buggy with a puncture, and ended up 6m11s adrift of his teammate at the end of the stage.
He now trails Sainz by 17m53s overall, but holds a comfortable third place ahead of Yazeed Al-Rajhi (Toyota), who consolidated fourth by finishing in the same position on the stage.
Orlando Terranova holds fifth in the best of the X-raid Mini 4x4s, ahead of Matthieu Serradori’s Century and Giniel de Villiers’ factory Toyota.
Two-time Formula 1 champion Fernando Alonso notched up the second top-10 finish of his Dakar career as he came home seventh, 12m23s behind fellow countryman Sainz.
The Toyota driver still trails by more than three hours overall following his costly accident on Monday’s second stage, however.
General classification (top 10):
Pos. | # | Driver / Co-driver | Car | Time | Gap |
1 | 305 | Carlos Sainz Lucas Cruz | Mini | 19h04m13s | |
2 | 300 | Nasser Al-Attiyah Mathieu Baumel | Toyota | 19h10m12s | 5m59s |
3 | 302 | Stephane Peterhansel Paulo Fiuza | Mini | 19h22m06s | 17m53s |
4 | 309 | Yazeed Al-Rajhi Konstantin Zhiltsov | Toyota | 19h35m32s | 31m39s |
5 | 311 | Orlando Terranova Bernardo Graue | Mini | 19h36m18s | 32m05s |
6 | 315 | Mathieu Serradori Fabian Lurquin | Century | 19h48m57s | 44m44s |
7 | 304 | Giniel de Villiers Alex Haro | Toyota | 19h50m39s | 46m26s |
8 | 307 | Bernhard ten Brinke Tom Colsoul | Toyota | 20h09m07s | 1h04m54s |
9 | 324 | Yasir Seaidan Alexy Kuzmich | Mini | 20h40m17s | 1h43m04s |
10 | 335 | Jerome Pelichet Pascal Larroque | Optimus | 21h15m20s | 2h11m08s |
Source: Read Full Article