Qatar’s al-Attiyah takes Dakar Rally lead as Sainz hits trouble

Toyota’s defending champion Nasser Saleh al-Attiyah took the lead in the Dakar Rally yesterday after Audi’s Carlos Sainz hit trouble on a shortened stage three in the Saudi Arabian desert.
Spaniard Sainz had led the Qatari by two minutes and 12 seconds overnight but lost 45 minutes on repairs to the rear left suspension of his electric hybrid car during the run from Al-Ula to Ha’il. The 60-year-old triple Dakar champion then lost more time with navigational problems and dropped out of the top 10.
French driver Guerlain Chicherit won the stage for GCK Motorsport, ahead of Argentina’s Orlando Terranova for the Bahrain Raid Xtreme team and Overdrive Racing’s Saudi contender Yazeed al-Rajhi. Al-Attiyah leads al-Rajhi by 13 minutes and 19 seconds overall with 11 stages still to come before the rally ends in Dammam on January 15.
The racing was cut short for safety reasons before the final checkpoint due to rainstorms preventing medical helicopters from flying, with competitors completing the journey to Ha’il by road.
“The degradation in weather conditions has made it no longer possible for the organizers to guarantee the best safety conditions for the competitors, so the crews in the car and truck categories have been halted at CP3 (after 377 km),” a statement from the ASO read. “The rankings for the day will be established from the times achieved at this point.”
Up until that point, the primarily sandy trek from AlUla to Ha’il had already produced its fair share of drama, with a number of big names suffering significant time losses. Chicherit bounced back from five punctures on Monday to win yesterday’s third stage, which was shortened from 447 kilometres to 378km due to torrential rain. The 44-year-old Prodrive driver timed 10 hours 56 minutes. “It is wonderful,” said Chicherit. “Of course we are disappointed with what happened yesterday but we have proved what we can achieve if we stay focused.”
After losing more than an hour during Monday’s second stage, Bahrain Raid Xtreme’s Sebastien Loeb endured another frustrating day, stopping barely 26km into the stage with a broken tradrod and losing 20 minutes before suffering another two punctures.
Loeb is 26th in the overall classification, 1h33m49s adrift of al-Attiyah in the lead.
The motorcycling standings also feature a new name as Australian rider Daniel Sanders has moved into the lead. Sanders’s win was ample consolation for the 28-year-old as his time penalty on Sunday for speeding had seen the GasGas rider stripped of the stage victory.
Sanders’s ploy of deliberately not topping the stage on Monday so he could avoid being first out on to the course yesterday paid off handsomely. He timed 5min 23sec faster than Argentinian rival Kevin Benavides with American Skyler Howes third, for a second successive stage, 6min 19sec adrift of the winner.
“I thought, OK, if I go for the win, I’ll try and push the whole day and win by a lot, and now I’ll focus on tomorrow,” said Sanders, who was winning his fourth career Dakar stage. “Of course, the Aussies have the strongest spirit. We’ve got some good natural desert skills.”
Sanders’s chances of overall victory were also boosted as one of the main contenders Ricky Brabec, the 2020 champion, was taken to hospital after crashing in the stage. The 31-year-old American came to grief on his Honda on the 274th kilometre of the stage and was taken to hospital by helicopter for further investigation after complaining of pain in his cervical vertebrae.
Brabec, who also finished second in 2021, had been awarded Sunday’s first stage after Sanders and others had been penalised for speeding. He is the second of the main motorcycling contenders to bow out early in this year’s edition - Britain’s 2022 champion Sam Sunderland crashed out on Sunday.

Results
Stage 3 Car winner: Guerlain Chicherit (FRA), GCK Motorsport, 3:22:59.
General rankings: 1. Nasser al-Attiyah (QAT), Toyota Gazoo Racing, 12:20:35; 2. Yazeed al-Rajhi (SAU), Overdrive Racing, 12:33:54; 3. Simon Vitse (FRA), MD Rally, 12:45:28.

Stage 3 Bike winner: Daniel Sanders (AUS), Red Bull GasGas Factory Racing, 4:24:15.
General rankings: 1. Daniel Sanders (AUS), Red Bull GasGas Factory Racing, 14:05:38; 2. Mason Klein (USA), BAS world KTM, 14:09:42; 3. Kevin Benavides (ARG), 14:12:31.