Al-Attiyah takes no risks and wins his fifth Dakar

The five-time Dakar champion managed to spend the last day calmly.without riskwho has more than an hour and twenty minutes’ rent in front of the general.

Finishing second with 1:18:49, Al-Attiyah, French Sébastien Loeb (Prodrive), made six consecutive runs without getting out of the second drawer of the podium. three wins (2023, 2022 and 2019) and three second places (2021, 2020 and 2018).

The Qatari parried all the problems in their championship defense and capitalized on what their opponents had, including standing-up Spaniard Carlos Sainz (Audi) after winning the first special. had to leaveand Loeb, who, after an unfortunate start to the rally, won seven stages, six of which were in a row.

Al-Attiyah only needed three partial wins and managed a comfortable lead to defend the title. With his fifth Dakar (2011, 2015, 2019, 2022 and 2023) surpassed Finnish Ari Vatanen on the winners list and is ahead of France’s Stéphane Peterhansel, who has just eight gips.

In the final stage and after breaking the new Dakar record six wins in a row Loeb softened. Equalizing Sainz with seven stage wins in an edition of Dakar for the first time in the last week of the competition, the Alsatian failed to take the first place.

Another Prodrive and another Frenchman, Guerlain Chicherit, best time at first checkpointThe 33rd kilometer of the final stage of the raid stretches between Al-Holuf and Dammam (Saudi Arabia), with 281 contact kilometers and 136 private kilometers, along a lake with some dirt, even mud, a lot of sand and a small amount of dried up towards the 29th kilometer.

Argentine Sebastian Halpern (Mini) was 16 seconds behind Chicherit in the first set and was a South African Henk Lategan (Toyota) went third to 31. Loeb gave up for more than a minute and Al-Attiyah, counting the miles to the finish line and Touareg, fell 1:47.

The Sheikh did not want to take unnecessary risks, nor did he want to get into trouble. what happened to the french Mathieu Serradori (Century), 10 kilometers later, he broke the engine of his car. He was ninth overall and second in the two-wheel drive classification prior to this special event, 2:30 behind the Chinese. weihan (SMG).

Halfway through the stage, Chicherit consolidated the lead with 43 seconds against the Swede. Mattias Ekstrom, Audi’s only survivor in the Dakar after the withdrawal of Sainz and Petterhansel. Halpern dropped to fourth place, 1:10 behind the stage leader.

Ekstrom closed the gap to 40 seconds at the last waypoint at the 102nd kilometer, but Golde gave up Chicherit left the clock at 1:09:24, beating the Swede 1:36 and eight seconds behind South African Henk Lategan. Halpern finished the stage 1:53 behind the winner.

Loeb 2:48 and Al-Attiyah, 5:41 left, but it didn’t matter. The Toyota man finished the Dakar in 45:03:15 and won his fifth Touareg, Alsatian second in 1:18:49 and the Brazilian Lucas Moraes (Toyota) Third at 1:36:31.