Frenchman Sébastien Loeb (Prodrive) risked, won and reduced the ten-minute advantage over Spaniard Carlos Sainz (Audi), who maintains his lead in the Dakar 2024 general classification, in which the Swede can no longer participate. Mattias Ekström (Audi) due to a fault in the vehicle’s suspension.

Loeb completes endless stage of Dakar 4 hours 56 minutes 39 seconds And although he suffered a tire puncture that caused him to lose seven minutes, he narrowed the gap to Sainz, who was in first place with a 19-minute difference from the Frenchman, with five stages remaining in the Dakar race, where he had his longest day this Sunday. With 483 timed kilometers.

Ekström, on the other hand, suffered a breakdown at the beginning of the stage that forced him to stop the car, thus saying goodbye to the rally and the Brazilian’s chance of winning. Lucas Moraes (Toyota) and Catalan co-pilot Armand Monleon He’s already in third place, one hour and 35 seconds behind the Madrid native.

While the Brazilian player came in second, seven minutes and six seconds behind Loeb, Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah (Prodrive), who had no chance of a third consecutive championship, beat Sainz and finished third, nine minutes and 47 seconds behind the Frenchman. .

Longing French pilot A Dakar that has been searching tirelessly for years However, he could not achieve this yet, despite having to open the track, he decided to take a risk and achieved his third stage in this edition of the rallies, that is, the king of the rallies, the twenty-sixth stage of his career.

He came away quite convinced and was more than three minutes ahead of Sainz, who was already aware of the situation after the first kilometres. hardness of this stageHe was one of the most complex in the remainder of the rally, and especially after his blowout, opting to secure the lead and waste time rather than suffer any errors.

Moreover, the sample was very close to it. Teammate Ekström emerged to make a difference but Just after passing Sainz on the trackHe had to stop due to a malfunction in his vehicle’s suspension and bid farewell to the general classification.

For this reason, Madrid native opted for good position This is to take no risks for Monday’s stage and on this day, which, along with the penultimate day of the rally, is marked in the Audi calendar as the most complicated of the rest of the rally.

Nani Roma’s retirement

Catalan driver ‘Nani’ Roma (Ford) withdrew from Dakar 2024 this Sunday due to a mechanical problem that occurred just at the beginning of the timed part of the seventh stage of the rally.

Catalan stopped 24th kilometer of special kilometer and was unable to return to the special stage, but managed to restart the car and take it to the Ad Duwadimi camp, from where he will attempt to rejoin the race this Monday to “keep learning” about the race with Ford. vehicle.

Rome was at the beginning of the stage. twelfth overall He was two hours and seven minutes behind the leader of the class, Spaniard Carlos Sainz (Audi), but his aim this year was for the mechanics and the Ford team to learn how to reach the next rally with a better performance when they returned to Dakar. completely new.

The Catalan rider started his twenty-seventh participation in Dakar 2024 last Sunday and this was undoubtedly one of the most special ones, having not been able to be in Arabia since last year, while he was recovering from an injury. bladder cancer this has been surpassed.