Qatar’s five-time champion Nasser al-Attiyah completed the stage in 11th, 12min 17sec off Lategan’s pace and now sits fourth in the overall standings, at 34min 14sec. Lategan, who also won the January 3 prologue, extended his lead over home hope Yazeed al-Rajhi to 5min 41sec in the general classification after the previous day’s chaotic race had virtually wiped out his advantage. Dakar Rally organisers were forced to erase any gains or losses for a 20km stretch during Sunday’s stage over a road book note error, and Lategan’s lead had been cut to 21 seconds.
Despite a two-minute penalty for speeding on the stage, Lategan finished the day’s driving 1min 47sec ahead of compatriot Guy Botterill, also in a Toyota. Lategan and co-driver Brett Cummings, who also won the prologue, have led the race since stage two, and the pair have four stages left, with Tuesday drivers taking route from Riyadh to Haradh.
“There was one canyon where everybody was getting lost,” said Lategan. “And we were a little bit nervous going into there because you see cars coming from the front and cars coming from all angles out the mountains. At the end, we went all the way out the canyon and then finally found our way. So we hopped from, let’s say, seventh or so on the road all the way to first. And then we were opening for quite a while. And then we made one or two small navigation errors. We had a puncture earlier on. So, not a bad day. We’re happy to have found that one waypoint, but not the perfect day.”
France’s Mathieu Serradori (Century) prevented an all-South African podium by finishing third, five seconds ahead of Brian Baragwanath.
Qatar’s al-Attiyah, who has seen fancied rivals Carlos Sainz and Sebastien Loeb withdraw from the gruelling race, said: “It was a very tough day. Sometimes when we were opening it was very difficult. Yazeed had a good line and when he passed we just followed him, until the dunes when we passed him, but it was really difficult. I am happy to finish this day. We still have four days left and we’ll see. The navigation was very hard. Sometimes we were lucky, other times not, but we made it here.”
Argentinian Luciano Benavides (KTM) won the bike category’s stage, 2min 08sec ahead of French rider Adrien Van Beveren. Spain’s Tosha Schareina was third, while Australian Daniel Sanders retained the overall lead by just over 11 minutes.
Schareina had initially been named provisional stage winner, but Benavides and Van Beveren were re-credited with the time spent assisting Chilean Pablo Quintanilla, who fell after 133km and was forced to withdraw due to a shoulder injury. This dropped Tosha Schareina down to third on the stage, but the Spaniard did gain some time on the overall leader Sanders who finished seventh.
“It was very, very trick at the beginning and I lost a lot of time early on,” Sanders said. “After that, I got into a really good rhythm and the navigation was easier but you had to be really switched on because we lost so much time at the beginning. I think tomorrow’s going to be the last difficult navigation day before we head down to the Empty Quarter.”
Tuesday’s stage nine features a 357km special from Riyadh to Haradh.
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