First on the road or not, Sebástian Loeb and Fabian Lurquin took a dominant stage win in their Prodrive Hunter as the Dakar Rally entered its second week.
Faced with 438km of racing from Riyadh to Al-Duwadimi and opening the road, Loeb initially dropped as low as 16th before scrambling back up the order, chasing down the pair of Toyota Gazoo Racing Hiluxes at the head of the time sheets, headed by Seth Quintero/Dennis Zenz and Lucas Moraes/Armand Monleon, a duel that after 173km, was separated by two seconds.
Matias Ekström, second overall in his Audi RS Q e-tron, ground to a halt 47km into the stage and had to wait for the chase truck to help repair the broken rear suspension. Another early casualty was the M-Sport Ford Ranger of Nani Roma, out with mechanical problems.
Mathieu Serradori/ Loic Minaudier made a welcome appearance in the top three in their Century Racing CR6-T, who were chased hard by Guerlain Chicherit/Alex Winocq in fourth.
Moraes took the lead from Quintero by km 213, while Loeb was threateningly close behind in third, just 18 seconds behind the TGR Hilux. By km 251, Moraes was still in the lead but Loeb had taken second from Quintero and looming large in the TGR driver’s mirrors was Nasser Al-Attiyah. The Qatari was out of the running, but aiming to grab as many W2RC points as he could.
By km 311, Loeb was being challenged by Serradori, 34 seconds adrift, followed by the two TGR crews and Chicherit. Sainz was a steady sixth, having only conceded 3:39 of his substantial lead – he could afford to give that amount of time away with a 30 minute lead…
As the cars neared the end of the stage, Moraes was back in second from Chicherit, Sainz and Serradori.
By stage end, Loeb was 10:31 ahead of Sainz in fourth, with Moraes and Al-Attiyah filling the stage podium.
Chicherit was fifth, followed by Serradori, Zala, Dumas, Quintero and Krotov.
Stage 7 results: (provisional)
Loeb, Moraes (+7:06), Al-Attiyah (+9:47)
Overall: Sainz, Loeb (+19:00), Moraes (+1:00:35)
While Chilean Jose Florimo stormed to his third Dakar 2024 bike win in seven stages, the real focus remains on the fight for the overall lead. Florimo’s Honda teammate Ricky Brabec followed Hero rival, Botswana rider Ross Branch home in fifth on the 483 km race over mixed terrain but Branch closed the deficit down to just one second!
Jose Florimo bounced into the lead at the 134 km waypoint, but Kevin Benavides was leading from Florimo by mid distance. Luciano Benavides sat third in front of an intriguing battle between overall top two, Brabec and Branch, with the lead changing between them by the waypoint.
Florimo has closed the overall gap down to six minutes 48 seconds in third Adrien van Beveren 15 minutes adrift, Kevin Benavides, Price, and Sanders. (Bike report by Motorsport Media)
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