Al Attiyah gains hefty lead as Dakar enters 2nd week

Al Dawadimi, Saudi Arabia: Qatar’s Nasser Al Attiyah stayed comfortably ahead in the Dakar Rally as Sebastien Loeb moved back into second place with a stage victory at the start of week two in Saudi Arabia yesterday.

Loeb’s second stage win of 2022 left France’s nine times world rally champion, driving for the Bahrain Raid Xtreme team, some 45 minutes adrift of his factory Toyota rival in the car category with five stages to go.

Al Attiyah, chasing his fourth Dakar title in the desert dunes, was second in the 402km timed seventh stage from the capital Riyadh west to Al Dawadimi but more than five minutes slower than Loeb.

“The second week of the Dakar is another race... today from the beginning we were not pushing but in the last part we pushed a little bit just to see,” said the Qatari, runner-up last year to French Dakar great Stephane Peterhansel.

Loeb said he had engine problems in the last 50km, costing him precious time.

“There is no strategy...we’ll do our race, try and attack and see what happens in the end,” he said.

Frenchman Adrien Van Beveren took the overall lead in the motorcycles from Britain’s Sam Sunderland, who fell back to fourth and some five-and-a-half minutes off the pace after finishing 28th.

Chilean rider Jose Ignacio Cornejo won the stage on a Honda.

Australian Daniel Sanders, Sunderland’s GasGas team mate who won the first and sixth stages, was taken to hospital after crashing and injuring his left arm on the way to a timed stage he had been due to lead off in.

“It was a bit of a rough day. It started out bad for Sanders with a crash in the liaison and then the stage was really, really difficult with the navigation,” said Sunderland.

“We still have so many long days in front of us and I’m sure there’ll be some more opportunities to attack, to recuperate some time.” 

Russian Dmitry Sotnikov led the truck category and Frenchman Alexandre Giroud the quadbikes.

The rally ends in Jeddah on Friday.

Overall classification after Stage 7
1: Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah/Matthieu Baumel (Toyota Gazoo Racing)    23H 52' 22''
2: Sebastien Loeb/Fabian Lurquin (Bahrain Raid Xtreme)    + 00H 44' 59''    
3: Yazeed Al Rajhi/Michael Orr (Overdrive Toyota)    + 00H 53' 31''
4: Lucio Alvarez/Armand Monleon (Overdrive Toyota)    + 01H 15' 09''    
5: Jakub Przygonski/Timo Gottschalk (X-Raid Mini JCW Team)    + 01H 30' 04''    
6: Orlando Terranova/Daniel Carreras (Bahrain Raid Xtreme)     + 01H 36' 55''
7: Vladimir Vasilyev/Oleg Uperenko (VRT Team)    + 01H 39' 47''
8: Martin Prokop/Viktor Chytka (Benzina Orlen Team    + 01H 44' 48''
9: Giniel De Villiers/Dennis Murphy (Toyota Gazoo Racing)    + 01H 47' 14''    
10: Sebastian Halpern/Bernardo Graue (X-Raid Mini JCW Team)    + 01H 58' 24''

Stage 7: Top 5 finishers
1: Sebastien Loeb/Fabian Lurquin (Bahrain Raid Xtreme)    03H 09' 32''
2: Nasser Al Attiyah/Matthieu Baumel (Toyota Gazoo Racing)    + 00H 05' 26''    
3: Carlos Sainz/Lucas Cruz (Team Audi Sport)    + 00H 07' 43''    
4: Stéphane Peterhansel/Edouard Boulanger (Team Audi Sport)    + 00H 09' 40''    
5: Yazeed Al Rajhi/Michael Orr (Overdrive Toyota)    + 00H 10' 03''