Salving some of the frustrations of his slow start to this year’s Dakar Rally, Sebastien Loeb took his first stage win of the year on Tuesday’s fourth leg. The French rallying legend set the quickest time of the day with his Prodrive Hunter on the 299km/186-mile trek from Al Salamiya to Al Hofuf to take his 24th stage win on the Dakar. Loeb headed home the consistent Yazeed Al Rajhi by 1m08s, as the Overdrive Racing Toyota Hilux driver bolstered his overall lead.
“It was a very good day for us — we did a clean stage,” said Loeb, who is now sixth overall, 23m50s behind Al Rajhi. “We were a bit in the dust for sure, because we started far back and we had to overtake a lot of cars. At one point we missed a waypoint and had to go back for about 30 seconds, but for the rest we did a very good stage, so no problems.”
Reigning Dakar champion Nasser Al Attiyah placed third in his own Prodrive Hunter, continuing his own comeback from a problematic start to this year’s rally. The Qatari was 1m22s down to Loeb on the stage and is now third overall behind Carlos Sainz Sr., who placed fourth today with his Audi RS Q e-tron. The Spanish veteran is 4m29s behind the Saudi race leader, with Al Attiyah 11m03 behind.
“We are learning about our new car and we’ll see, because it’s not easy,” said Al Attiyah of his prospects for winning a third straight Dakar, which would be his sixth overall with four different manufacturers. “The stage was really fast and a lot of problems have happened, but now I think step by step we can get back to the top.”
Headed in the opposite direction was Seth Quintero, whose hopes of a strong finish in his first Dakar in the top class evaporated when his Toyota was stranded by a mechanical issue, after once again showing front-running pace. The American had to wait for more than two and a half hours for his assistance team before leaving the route of the special by road. It was a crushing blow for Quintero, who had ranked as high as fourth as an Ultimate class rookie.
In the motorcycle category it was another big day for the Monster Energy Honda team as Nacho Cornejo led home teammate Ricky Brabec, the Spaniard 2m59s ahead of the American and taking the overall lead from Ross Branch (Hero Motorsports), who placed fourth behind Kevin Benavides (Red Bull KTM). Branch still came away smiling despite a difficult stage that included a couple of crashes for the Botswanan rider.
“Yeah, I thought I’d try bent style handlebars today! No, really it was a rough day for me, one of the days I’d rather forget,” said Branch. “I crashed after 40km just trying to look at the road book and I hit a rock. Then I crashed again 20km before the finish just going into the dunes. It was a bit of camel grass hidden in the sand and that threw me over the handlebars. But I’m OK and the bike is repairable. I don’t think I lost too much time.”
Branch now trails Cornejo by 1m15s, with Brabec looming in third, 4m56s behind the leader.