Carlos Sainz takes the lead in Dakar

The French athlete completed the stage in 3 hours, 54 minutes and 40 seconds. Sainz finished eighthBeing 17 minutes and 15 seconds behind Peterhansel helped him maintain the huge advantage he gained in the first stage this Saturday and move into the lead, thus overtaking Belgian De Mevius, who was fifth in the general classification.

Sainz is 4 minutes 17 seconds ahead of Loeb, who is third, and 13 minutes 16 seconds ahead of the winner of this stage, while he is 12 minutes ahead of Qatar. Nasser Al-Attiyahthe current Dakar champion and finished the day in fifth place.

Two heroic teammates

peterhansel I finished confirming the good omens of the first two days: Swede Mattias Ekström’s second place this Saturday behind Carlos Sainz and a minute ahead of his rivals and his victory on Sunday confirmed that Audi came to this Dakar with the aim of winning. waiting a few more days to verify its reliability.

Until then, the German team can be excited about the first results and celebrate the double milestone: Stéphane Peterhansel’s fiftieth victory in cars and the lead the Spaniard has taken over his closest rivals this Sunday. On top of all this, with a hybrid vehicle.

The French driver beat third-placed first-time driver Seth Quintero by just over three minutes and trailed Loeb by 29 seconds; He showed that Prodrive, driven by both him and Al-Attiyah, could be a great contender for the title. Toyotas, which are in five of the top ten vehicles in the overall classification, have something to say.

Although he was always very close to Loeb, Peterhansel led eight of the nine sections of this 651-kilometer stage463 private, between the cities of Al Hanakiyah and Al Duwadimi, taking pilots through Saudi Arabia.

Carlos Sainz also had a hard timeAlthough he dominated the volcanic stones this Saturday, this Sunday he finished eighth behind main favorites such as Al-Attiyah, Peterhansel and Loeb. The Madrid native started the race second and quickly overtook Belgian De Mevius, so he had to open the track and also suffered a puncture.

Again, The good income he earned in the first place enabled him to take no risks for the rest of the day. and those who have to do it should be those who spend much more time this Saturday.

Al-Attiyah is recovering

But the other favorites made it through and survived the bad first stage. The clearest example, besides that of Peterhansel and Loeb, Al-Attiyah finished fourth in the stage after losing almost 25 minutes to Sainz this Saturday. The same thing happened to Loeb in the first stage, as he admitted at the end of the stage, despite the back bar breaking.

Thus, recovering by about twelve minutes, he was only 12 minutes and 16 seconds behind and finished seventh in the general classification behind Ekström, who was in sixth place after finishing the seventh stage.

This also worked for Catalan Laia Sanz, who finished in twentieth place, 36 minutes behind the leader.. Even though his number one goal this year was to get to know the car and give data to Ford, it was even worse for Nani Roma, who lost up to 25 minutes compared to the leading drivers and said goodbye to his overall luck. Get ready for the next Dakar where they will perform better with a new car.

In any case, runners have four stages ahead of them until they reach the rest day where they can undo their past mistakes; because this Monday and Tuesday they will race in a half marathon between Ad Duwadimi and Al-Hofuf. In preparation for the ’48-hour chrono’ that will take place between Wednesday and Thursday in the Empty Quarter desert, the most inhospitable desert of the Arabian Peninsula.