Carlos Sainz and Audi now see their goals closer Dakar 2024, In a race with many unpredictable events, nothing is guaranteed until the end. For now, the Madrid driver continues his bid to win a fourth Touareg trophy and, with four stages to go, he leads with an almost 25-minute lead over his immediate rival. Sebastien Loeb (Hunter).
Opening the track in the eighth special race today, the French driver dominated most of the day until the final kilometers when Sainz made a navigation error that caused him to lose another 6 minutes and leave him 24 minutes behind. : Total 47.
Al-Attiyah, out of combat
The first ‘surprise’ of the day was realized Nasser Al-Attiyah, He said that his engine broke down at the 62nd km and he asked for help to reach the tent after losing more than two and a half hours. The five-time Dakar champion, who replaced his Toyota with Prodrive Hunter this year while waiting to start his project with Dacia in 2025, had already run out of options to defend the championship in the first week of the race. It has serious reliability problems. He now plans to re-enter the race to collect points for the World Championship (W2RC), which he has won in the last two years.
Loeb and his co-pilot Fabien Lurquin They looked like they had just won a stage victory on the track and Sainz was lasting more than three minutes, We see how the BRX duo closed the gap in front of the general classification. However, they failed at kilometer 390 and it took longer than it should have to find the direction to the waypoint. This cost them valuable time and nine-time world rally champion Loeb could not recover from the impact despite passing the final asphalt section at full speed and lost time, losing nearly 6 minutes to Sainz’s time. All proceeds from Sunday’s stage.
Swedish Mattias EkströmThe man who lost second place and the chance to win the Touareg yesterday when his Audi RS Q e-tron broke down due to a faulty part, consoled himself with the stage victory ahead of his teammate Stephane Peterhansel this Monday, also won the race. came out in the general classification. The Frenchman Chicherit (Toyota), who was third at the finish line, relegated Sainz to fourth place, preventing the opening of the track on the ninth stage this Tuesday with a 417 km private and 639 km connection between Hail and Al Ula.