Al-Attiyah wins second Dakar stage to close up on leaders

Nasser Al-Attiyah has won his second stage of the 2018 Dakar Rally to jump into third overall in the classification and break the Peugeot domination at the top of the leaderboard.

After a tricky second day, the two-time Dakar winner battled back for victory having led at every waypoint to win the stage by over four minutes from Stephane Peterhansel, who in turn has taken the overall lead from Peugeot team-mate Cyril Despres.

With Al-Attiyah jumping to third for Toyota, Sebastien Loeb sits fourth overall – over 11 minutes behind leader and defending Dakar champion Peterhansel – with Toyota’s Giniel de Villiers rounding out the top five. Carlos Sainz enjoyed a strong third stage to finish third and move up to sixth in the overall classification which sees the title being solely battled between Peugeot and Toyota after a disastrous start for Mini.

Mikko Hirvonen lost over an hour and a half in his X-raid Mini buggy after being forced to stop with damage and has sunk to 20^th in the overall classification. Mini’s final hope at the Dakar Nani Roma – after Bryce Menzies and Yazeed Al-Rajhi crashed out on Sunday – suffered a nasty roll in his four-wheel-drive Mini John Cooper Works Rally car towards the end of the 184-mile timed special stage, losing 26 minutes in time, and requiring medical attention at the end of the stage.

In the bike category Sam Sunderland wrestled back the lead for KTM as previous front-runner Adrien van Beveren dropped down to sixth overall after losing over 10 minutes of time on the third day. Sunderland leads by 4m38s from Monster Energy Honda’s Kevin Benavides.