Dakar 2020, Stage 5: Sainz extends lead with win

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-driverCarTimeGap
1305

 Carlos Sainz

 Lucas Cruz

Mini19h04m13s 
2300

 Nasser Al-Attiyah

 Mathieu Baumel

Toyota19h10m12s5m59s
3302 Stephane Peterhansel
 Paulo Fiuza
Mini19h22m06s17m53s
4309

 Yazeed Al-Rajhi

 Konstantin Zhiltsov

Toyota19h35m32s31m39s
5311

 Orlando Terranova

 Bernardo Graue

Mini19h36m18s32m05s
6315

 Mathieu Serradori

 Fabian Lurquin

Century19h48m57s44m44s
7304

 Giniel de Villiers

 Alex Haro

Toyota19h50m39s46m26s
8307

 Bernhard ten Brinke

 Tom Colsoul

Toyota20h09m07s1h04m54s
9324

 Yasir Seaidan

 Alexy Kuzmich

Mini20h40m17s1h43m04s
10335

 Jerome Pelichet

 Pascal Larroque

Optimus21h15m20s2h11m08s

Source: Read Full Article