Stage 7: Riyadh – Wadi Ad Dawasir 459km, liaison 418km
Mattias Ekstrom and Emil Bergkvist emerged as the surprise winners of stage seven, having ranked second on the timing screens to Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings as late as km 417.
Across the opening 60km, the stage resembled a WRC sprint event rather than a marathon with the top ten covered by 61 seconds!
Ekstrom held a slender 30 second lead over Lategan before the South African youngster opened the taps on his Gazoo Racing W2RC Hilux and sprinted into the lead by km 107 with 58 seconds in hand over the hard-charging Swede.
By km 155, Lategan’s lead was 1’44” before Ekstrom halted his runaway charge, pegging the gap to 1’35” at km 178. The Ford Raptor kept coming, the gap dropping as low as 27 seconds at km 295, before the Hilux started to edge away again.
Lategan’s charge saw him re-take the virtual overall lead at km 375 but the final 42km, however, turned the results on their head as Lategan tumbled down the order to 13th, some 8½ minutes behind Ekstrom’s Ford Raptor.
30km from the end of the stage, a right-rear damper broke and it also damaged the driveshaft. They had a spare, changed the damper, discarded the driveshaft and finished the stage in two-wheel drive.
In the provisional overall standings, Nasser Al-Attiyah retained first place despite opening the road and ending 11th on the day, with Ekstrom moving into second position, 4’47” adrift with Lategan dropping to fourth, six seconds behind Nani Roma/Alex Haro after the Spaniard’s stage five 1’10” penalty was voided.
There was a mighty scrap for the final step of the podium between Lucas Moraes (Dacia Sandrider), Joao Ferreira and Toby Price (Toyota Hilux) and Mitch Guthrie’s Raptor. As late as km 417, the four were covered by 61 seconds and it could have gone to any of the teams but as they arrived in Wadi Ad Dawasir, it was Ferreira in second by 28 seconds over Guthrie, Price was six seconds further back and Moraes in fifth place, 18 seconds behind the Australian Toyota driver.
Sebastien Loeb and Seth Quintero ended sixth and seventh, separated by five seconds with Mathieu Serradori taking eighth in his Century Racing CR-7, 18 seconds behind the US Toyota driver, with Carlos Sainz and Nani Roma making it four Fords in the top ten with ninth and tenth respectively.
Luciano Benavides completed the rather fast course in four hours, romping home with 4′47″ to spare over Edgar Canet and 4′57″ over Adrien Van Beveren.
The top three overall remain the same, with Daniel Sanders sitting at the head of the standings with his closest pursuer, Ricky Brabec +4′25″ behind.
Images credits: A.S.O, Red Bull Content Pool
Discussion about this post