Stage 6: Ha’il to Riyadh 326km, liaison 589km
You had the feeling that if Nasser Al-Attiyah was lurking in Friday’s road order around the mid-teens, and with sand and dunes on the menu for the final stage before the rest day in Riyadh, he would pull out all the stops on a surface that he knows so well.
Al-Attiyah, a five-time Dakar winner and co-driver Fabian Lurquin put in a masterclass drive in their Dacia Sandrider to win stage six and take the overall lead of the rally, while Sebastien Loeb and Edouard Boulanger duly surfed the dunes to second place on the day, ending a fraction under three minutes behind the Qatari and giving Dacia their first one-two on the legendary event. It was Al-Attiyah’s 49th Dakar stage win and was closing in on the outright record led by Ari Vatanen and Stephan Peterhansel.
As the stage got underway, Joao Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro took the early lead in their TGRSA Hilux with Nani Roma chasing hard in his Ford Raptor up to km 78 but after the next split at km 162, Al-Attiyah had the lead and 24km later, had snatched the virtual overall lead from Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings by two seconds.
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Seth Quintero and Andrew Short were the leading Toyota holding second for the bulk of the stage, but Loeb was closing in, from sixth at km 204 to third by km 248. At the final split before the finish, Loeb was up into second place with 14 seconds as a buffer to the Toyota driver. As they arrived at the stage end, Loeb was just 21 seconds ahead of the American Toyota driver.
Toby Price and Armand Monleon had a strong stage to finish fourth, exactly a minute behind his TGR W2RC teammate.
Ferreira eventually brought his Gazoo Racing SA Hilux home in fifth, 35 seconds ahead of Roma, the leading Ford, who in turn was just over a minute ahead of fellow Raptor racer Carlos Sainz.
Mathieu Serradori and Loic Minaudier (Century Racing CR-7) pipped Guy Botterill and Oriol Mena by two seconds for eighth and ninth while Eryk Goczal/Szymon Gospodarczyk rounded out the top ten in their Toyota Hilux.
The double stage winner Mitch Guthrie came home in 11th and former rally leader Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings slotted in in 12th.
In the overall standings heading into the rest day, Al-Attiyah leads Lategan by 6’10” after 24 hours and 18 minutes of hard racing. Nani Roma moved onto the virtual podium three minutes behind Lategan.
Daniel Sanders was on a roll on the first big sandy stage leading to Riyadh just before the rest day. Starting from Hail in third position, the defending champion swiftly caught Nacho Cornejo and then his teammate Luciano Benivades on his way to finishing the special stage alone and gobbling up a considerable chunk of the bonuses on offer to the opener (2’40’’), providing him with sufficient time to pull away in the overall rankings. However, the Australian, failed to respect a speed limit, which was a mistake that cost him a six-minute penalty.
Image credits: A.S.O and Red Bull Content Pool
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