Stage 9: Riyadh – Haradh stage 357km, liaison 232km
Nasser Al-Attiyah and Edouard Boulanger won stage nine, becoming the eighth different winner to date and earning the Dacia Sandrider its first stage win of the rally.
The Qatari lead from start to finish save for a brief spell where he fell 10 seconds behind Mattias Ekstrom at km 81. In the overall standings, he remains in fourth position, 25 minutes off the lead with three stages to go.
Guillaume de Mevius and Mathieu Baumel enjoyed a strong stage, bringing their X-Raid Mini JCW home in second place, 25 seconds ahead of Al Rajhi’s Overdrive Toyota.
It was a bad day for the South African Toyota Gazoo Racing team. Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings opened the road but made a small navigation error close to the start and picked up a puncture as well, losing the lead they’d held since stage two after finishing 11th on the stage. “A very difficult day for us. It was not supposed to be so bad but we made an error right near the beginning, got lost and while we got lost we had a puncture. Really bad from our side, I’m a little bit disappointed. Not a great day. That was one of our worst days of this Dakar. It’s not over, there’s still a long way to go, a lot of race miles to go but that was not great”, said a disappointed Lategan at the end of the stage.
Worse for TGRSA though, Guy Botterill and Dennis Murphy suffered a high-speed, 6th gear, end-over-end crash which stretched over a distance of 500m, leaving their Hilux a twisted wreck in the desert. Fortunately, both driver and navigator emerged unhurt. “That was huge, that was a big accident’”, said Botterill.
Mattias Ekstrom and Emil Bergkvist brought their Ford Raptor home in fourth place, well ahead of Rokas Bascuiska/Oriol Mena’s Overdrive Toyota.
Mitch Guthrie/Kellon Walch kept up their steady pace, taking sixth in their Raptor and comfortably ahead of Simone Vitse/Max Delfino who brought their Chevvy V8-powered MD Optimus 4 x 2 home inside the top ten for the first time.
Marcelo Gastaldi/Adrien Metge top-scored for Century Racing, bringing their CR7 home in eighth with 19 seconds in hand over Cristina Guttierrez/Pablo Moreno’s Dacia Sandrider.
Joao Ferreira/Filipe Palmeiro made it two Minis in the top ten, just 22 seconds behind the Dacia pair.
Daniel Sanders extended his lead by 3’42’’ over Tosha Schareina, his closest pursuer in the general rankings. The bike category leader has strengthened his position and now leads the Spaniard by 14’45’’. Third-placed Adrien Van Beveren regained 1’10’’ on the Australian and has moved to within 20’21’’. Luciano Benavides and Ricky Brabec complete the top 5 in the general rankings, respectively 27’44’’ and 31’31’’ behind.
The French Monster Energy Honda team rider Adrien van Beveren finished the stage with the day’s second-best time behind Luciano Benavides and has closed into within 6 minutes of 2nd place in the general rankings, which is still occupied by Tosha Schareina: “It was a very tough stage, less eventful than yesterday but more complicated for the navigation. It wasn’t a transition stage, to be honest, and I had to turn round three or four times today. I was riding with Luciano and we rode at a fast pace. In such a case, the navigation becomes complicated. On some stages, you have to accept to make some small mistakes. Perhaps, Tosha was not on top form but he still managed to ride quickly”.
Overall Positions (Provisional)
| 1 | Y. Al Rajhi/T. Gottschalk | Overdrive Toyota Hilux | 45:06:54 |
| 2 | H. Lategan/B. Cummings | Toyota Gazoo Racing SA Hilux | +7:09 |
| 3 | M. Ekstrom/E. Bergkvist | M-Sport Ford Raptor | +24:50 |
| 4 | N. Al-Attiyah/E. Boulanger | Dacia Sandrider | +25:21 |
| 5 | M. Guthrie/K. Walch | M-Sport Ford Raptor | +56:28 |
| 6 | M. Serradori/L. Minaudier | Century Racing CR7 | +1:06:52 |
| 7 | J. Yacopini/D. Oliveras | Overdrive Toyota Hilux | +1:44:41 |
| 8 | S. Quintero/D. Zenz | Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux | +1:46:07 |
| 9 | J. Ferreira/F. Palmeiro | X-Raid Mini JCW | +2:11:02 |
| 10 | B. Baragwanath/L. Cremer | Century Racing CR7 | +2:31:14 |
