Agencies
Hail (Saudi Arabia)
Five-times champion Nasser Al Attiyah got into trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, becoming the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.
The Qatari ace, driving a Dacia Sandrider, started the day in second place and chasing Toyota’s South African leader Henk Lategan but dropped to seventh and 35 minutes adrift after suffering wheel issues.
Al Attiyah suffered a puncture and then a broken suspension arm. He waited for Dacia teammate Cristina Gutierrez who gave him the part from her car. Despite dropping over half an hour, he is not going down without a fight. “We didn’t have many problems —just one! Actually, we stopped once for a puncture and then again because we broke a rear suspension arm. We had to wait for Cristina, who gave us hers, and then we repaired it and got going again… What else could we do? That’s just how it is. Now the car is fine and we’ll have to adapt tomorrow and next week. My only option is to attack,” Al Attiyah said.
Local hero Yazeed Al Rajhi won the 415km stage four from Al Henakiyah to Al Ula for the Toyota Overdrive Racing team, with Lategan four minutes and 51 seconds slower. Lategan’s overall lead shrank to six minutes and 54 seconds, with Al Rajhi again his closest rival after moving up from fourth. The stage ended at a makeshift overnight bivouac where competitors won’t be able to call on their support team before hitting the road again today.
France’s nine-times world rally champion Loeb, Al Attiyah’s teammate, was ruled out with a damaged car on Tuesday while four times Dakar winner Sainz went out on Monday after rolling his Ford.
In the motorcycle category, Australian Red Bull KTM rider Daniel Sanders stretched his lead to 13 minutes and 26 seconds over Spaniard Tosha Schareina after a fourth stage win out of five, including the prologue. Worries about protecting his bike and tyres led Spaniard Schareina to deliberately surrender the lead near the finish in the motorcycle category.
The 29-year-old Schareina led by 2 min 30 sec with 32 km to go, and was closing in on the first stage win of his career when he slowed to allow Sanders to pass. “I lost a couple of minutes so I wouldn’t have to open up tomorrow. I had to be careful with the bike, with the tyres, because this is the marathon stage and tomorrow,” said Schareina.
Sanders won the prologue and three of the other four stages so far and leads Schareina by 13min 26sec in the overall standings. “I got lost a fair bit,” Sanders said. “A little bit of cat and mouse at the end, trying to slow down. And yeah, Tosha was leading and he stopped for two minutes.”
Botswana’s Ross Branch remained third overall, with defending champion Ricky Brabec of the United States in fifth place but nearly half an hour off the lead.
Thursday’s fifth stage is a 428km special from Al Ula to Hail ahead of a much needed rest day on Friday. The two-week rally ends on January 17.
