After Wednesday’s stage, Sebastian Loeb was really piling on the pressure as he fought for victory against Carlos Sainz, taking chunks of time off the Spaniard.
‘Game on’ yesterday became ‘game over’ for the nine-time World Rally Champion. This is his eighth Dakar, and it’s all that’s consuming him – win Dakar. He’s finished second three times in 2017, 2022 and 2023.
Fast forward 24 hours, Loeb and Prodrive Hunter’s challenge was over after stopping for an hour to repair a broken front suspension part.
According to the Bahrain Raid Extreme team, Sébastian Loeb damaged his suspension following a brutal landing after a jump, but managed to repair the broken part thanks to the help of the YunXiang China T1+ team’s Hunter crew.
Sainz headed into the final stage, reduced to 420km, determined to lay matters to rest, he held the lead from the first waypoint at km 43 and that’s where he and Lucas Cruz stayed, the Audi RS Q e-tron running like the proverbial Swiss clock.
Behind the flying Audi, Loeb was 21 seconds in arrears and a great battle was in prospect until the fateful km 132…
Guillaume de Mevius/Xavier Panseri was one team involved in a mighty scrap with Mathieu Serradori’s Century Racing CR6-T along with Romain Dumas, Guerlain Chicherit, Guy Botterill, Seth Quintero, Matias Ekström and a host of other teams.
Over the first half of the stage, positions changed repeatedly by the waypoint; km 139, it was Peterhansel in second, Serradori third and Botterill in fourth.
40km later, Serradori was second, de Mevius third and Peterhansel fourth, and so it went on.
After the halfway mark, things settled down a bit, with Sainz building a two minute lead over De Mevius, Dumas et al.
A surprise but welcome name to pop inside the top 10 was that of Christian Lavieille/Valentin Sarreaud in their MD Optimus in eighth, the French pair ultimately destined to finish sixth at the Yanbu finish.
At km 292, Sainz had a minute over Chicherit who passed De Mevius, who was chased in turn by Serradori and the leading Toyota Gazoo racing entry of Quintero, with Moraes just behind. The top four were just 2½ minutes apart with a mighty scrap raging between De Mevius and Serradori, just 23 seconds apart.
By km 333 Sainz was one second quicker than Chicherit, with Serradori, Quintero, Moraes, Dumas, Ekström, Botterill and Sa’ood Variawa in tow.
At the final waypoint before the finish, Chicherit was 3:14 ahead of Sainz, who’d backed off; with an hour lead over Moraes, there was no need to push any longer.
As the cars rolled into the Yanbu bivouac, Chicherit had banked his second consecutive stage win ahead some 5½ minutes ahead of his Overdrive Racing Toyota teammate De Mevius. Sainz was three seconds slower in third, followed by Matias Ekström.
The drive of the day came from 18-year-old Dakar rookie Sa’ood Variawa and Francois Cazalet who ended fifth in their Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux. Having gone from 50th to 19th to 11th and now 5th, the youngster made people sit up and take notice of his talent.
Lavieille was sixth from Juan Jacopini/Daniel Carreras in another Overdrive Hilux. Vaidotas Zala/Paulo Fiuza, running the Dakar Experience, ended seventh in their X-Raid Mini JCW, followed by Nani Roma’s best result after bringing his M-Sport/NWM Ford Ranger home in ninth.
Rookie Guy Botterill and Brett Cummings added another strong result to their list, keeping them firmly in the top 10 overall.
Stage results:
Chicherit, De Mevius (+5:32), Sainz (+5:35)
Overall:
Sainz, Moraes (+De Mevius 1:27:06), Loeb (+1:35:02)
Dakar’s Bike stage proved a brilliant one as Botswana rider Ross Branch won the day to consolidate his second place. Bradley Cox meanwhile stormed to the Rally 2 win to move onto podium and into contention for a shock R2 win. Overall leader Ricky Brabec benefited from significant bonuses to end second to consolidate his motorcycle lead with 172 km left to race on Friday.
Branch controlled the pace up front, leading by around a minute from van Beveren and defending champion, Argentine Luciano Benavides’ Husqvarna, with Cox troubling both of them as he climbed into the Rally 2 podium positions and closed in on that class leader overall. Brabec meanwhile sat sixth, over four minutes off Branch but benefiting more than five minutes of road-opening bonus to effectively make him the leader of the day.
All Brabec now needs to do is ride home to protect his advantage (bike report by Motorsport Media)
