Tag: Sebastien Loeb

Sébastien Loeb continued his comeback charge in the 46th Dakar Rally by winning today’s ninth stage, covering 417km/259 miles from Ha’il to Al-lula. With his 27th career Dakar stage triumph, the Frenchman regained more than four minutes on overall leader Carlos Sainz Sr., although the Spaniard still leads by 20m33ss ahead of his French rival.

“We had two punctures in the middle of the stage, so at the end I had to be a bit careful and not have a third one,” Loeb said. “The gap is still big, but we still have three stages to go. So, we’ll see and we’ll continue to push for the next three days.”

Sainz, who was escorted by his Audi teammates who have dropped out of contention, was pleased despite finishing 4m14s behind Loeb’s Prodrive Hunter in second.

“We were in first, second and fourth this morning. I waited for Carlos for six minutes at the start to escort him throughout the special, always 30 seconds behind, just in case,” related Stephane Peterhansel, who wound up sixth on the stage with his Audi RS Q e-tron. “It wasn’t easy for him because as long as there were cars in front, they were laying down tracks, but for the last 200km he opened on his own.

“You could see that he was hesitating a few times, which isn’t too bad a thing when navigating, but it still wasn’t an easy stage. You’d think that with our careers and our years of experience the stress would diminish, but no. I remember in 2021 when we won, we were stressed from start to finish because we were afraid of making a mistake and losing the victory. Carlos is in a good position. But Sébastien is capable of recovering 10 minutes a day, or even more if he goes to the limit. So, I can understand why Carlos is stressed. Having 20-25 minutes is good, but if you have a technical problem, you lose them very quickly.”

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Lucas Moraes seemed likely to grab third place today, but the Brazilian lost time over the last few kilometers and finished more than 11 minutes behind the winner with his Toyota. He still occupies third place in the general rankings, but is more than an hour and 12 minutes behind Sainz. Century Racing’s Mathieu Serradori finished third, 4m43s behind Loeb.

Adrien Van Beveren took his second stage win of this edition of the Dakar, 32s ahead of Monster Energy Honda teammate Ricky Brabec with Pablo Quintanilla in third, 4m19s behind, giving Honda a 1-2-3. Ross Branch completed the stage in fifth and now trails overall leader Brabec by 7m09s, while Van Beveren has moved above Honda’s Nacho Cornejo to third overall. 11m26 behind his American teammate.

The unique challenges of the Dakar Rally’s new “48 Chrono” double stage — a 835km/519-mile slog through the dunes of Saudi Arabia’s Empty Quarter — tested the limits of the competitors’ endurance, so it was appropriate that one of the greatest rallying talents of all time came out on top. Frenchman Sébastien Loeb — who won the World Rally Championship nine straight times before going on to star in rallycross, at Pikes Peak and Dakar — set the pace on the second half of the two-day stage to pick up his second victory on this edition of the Dakar, increasing his career total of stage wins in the event to 25.

Having led the stage until the overnight halt, Carlos Sainz Sr. finished with the second-best time, 2m01s behind Loeb’s Prodrive Hunter (pictured above). The Spaniard leads the overall standings with an advantage of more than 20 minutes over his Audi RS Q e-tron teammate Mattias Ekström who was third today, almost 10m55s behind.

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Loeb, who was outside of the top 20 after problem-plagued early stages, is now up to third overall — albeit 29m31s behind the leader — heading into Saturday’s rest day. Lucas Moraes (Toyota Gazoo Racing) and Guillaume de Mevius (Overdrie Toyota) round out the top five in the general rankings.

“I tried to take it a bit easy for the car — I knew that it would be very hard mechanically for it to go through so many kilometers in the dunes,” said Loeb. “Today, there were 150km left so I tried to push harder on this one, to get a good time and that’s what we did.

“I think now for the second week we’ll have to continue to find the right rhythm. The level is really high, I think. The cars are really fast, the crews are really fast. If you have any mistakes on just one stage you lose a lot of time and you are far behind, so we need to be consistent until the end.”

For Loeb’s Prodrive teammate Nasser Al-Attiyah, though, the 48th Chrono dealt a knockout blow after an up-and-down week for the reigning and five-time Dakar champion. The Qatari, who had moved into second overall before the double stage, was brought to a standstill with a broken steering arm on the hub carrier of his Hunter. He had to wait for his team’s assistance truck for repairs, losing 2h45m and any hope of a top finish this year.

Monster Energy Honda rider Adrien Van Beveren maintained his strong form throughout the double stage to take his first win this year in the motorcycle category, having played the strategy game well.

“Yesterday, I pushed very hard and caught all my main rivals, but I soon saw that I didn’t have much fuel left, so I slowed down,” said the Frenchman. “I think everybody realized the same thing because nobody caught or overtook me either. There is an economy mode on our bikes, so I activated it and then made sure I rode in a fluid way to be careful how much fuel I was using, but I think the technique I learned whilst riding at Le Touquet spoke for itself.

“Physically, it was very tough, but I was able to fulfill my potential because it’s an area I work very hard on. I like to suffer a little bit — that’s what being a top-level sportsperson is all about.”

In the general rankings, Van Beveren runs in third position, 9m21s behind his American teammate Ricky Brabec. After completing a consistent first week with a third place run today behind Tobey Price, Brabec is the new leader ahead of Ross Branch (Hero Motorsport), who is just 51s behind. Brabec found the 48 Chrono stage a refreshing change that fired him up for the second half of the rally raid.

“Two days in the desert was quite fun, honestly,” said Brabec. “The camping last night was really fun. We didn’t sleep that great, but overall it was fun with the guys. We had a little campfire and barbecue cooked our meal.

“The stage was long. I think if we had started at 7am we could have finished the whole thing. I feel good. I’m ready to go for the second week. My fingers are a little sore from the clutch over the last two days, but overall it was fun. I enjoyed it. I know some of the other guys are saying it’s too much but, hey, it’s the Dakar — it’s not easy.”