Stage 3: AlUla – AlUla 421km, liaison 315km
What a difference a day makes on the Dakar Rally. Ford bounced back with no less than six Raptors and a single Toyota making it into the top ten.
To crown a red-letter day for Ford, in the provisional overall standings, Ford rules the roost filling the top five slots on the leaderboard.
Mitch Guthrie and Kellon Walch took the win after snatching the lead from Mattias Ekstrom at the 303km mark. Ekstrom was untouchable from the get-go and led comfortably until he was usurped by his American teammate and by km 340, Ford Raptors filled the top five stage standings. It was a maiden Ultimate victory for the 29-year-old American.
Martin Prokop and Viktor Chytka added another podium to their stage one efforts, going one better to come home in second place, their best ever result and the leading privateer in their Orlen Jipocar entered Raptor, 2’27” seconds off the top factory machine.
The drive of the day came from Guy Botterill and Oriol Mena, who started 37th this morning after a torrid Monday, and scythed their way through the field to the final step of the podium. He was ninth one hundred kilometres from the finishing line and produced a stunning finale behind the wheel of his TGR SA Hilux.
Lucas Moraes/Dennis Zenz and the Spanish speed queen Cristina Gutierrez/Pablo Moreno gave Dacia something to smile about after bringing their Sandriders home in fourth and fifth places respectively, with Gutierrez equalling her best ever result in the car class and only 11 seconds behind her W2RC Champion teammate.
Nani Roma/Alex Haro brought their factory Raptor home in sixth, 11 seconds ahead of Carls Sainz/Lucas Cruz in another factory Ford. Fifth, sixth and seventh was a Spanish Armada with six Spaniards in the cars.
One second. That was the gap between Sainz and Mathieu Serradori/Loic Minaudier in the factory Century Racing CR7, the best showing so far for the South African designed and built, Audi powered machine.
Ekstrom and Emil Bergkvist had to settle for ninth after their strong run across ¾ of the stage, battling in dust all day having started from 13th in the morning.
Denis Krotov/Konstantin Zhiltsov rounded out the top ten in their privateer Ford Raptor.
Sébastien Loeb finished 25 minutes behind Mitch Guthrie and explained that he had two punctures in the first hundred kilometres. Without another spare wheel, he had to drive carefully to preserve his tyres to reach the finishing line. His result drops him down to 12th place in the general rankings.
Nasser Al-Attiyah also suffered two punctures and fell back as he ensured his survival, ending 19th after dropping 22 minutes.
Once again, Tuesday’s top 15 all started the day well outside the top ten on Monday.
Honda riders Tosha Schareina and Ricky Brabec fought back against dominant KTM to take a memorable one-two ahead of the overall leader Daniel Sanders who ended third on the day.
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