MOTORSPORT: Dakar is Peugeot’s to lose

Carlos Sainz leads the 2018 Dakar rally by more than an hour, but if any of the misfortune that has struck his Peugeot teammates hits the Spaniard in the remaining days Toyota could yet land its first win in the marathon rally.

Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah is more than 66 minutes behind Sainz but ready to pounce if the opportunity presents itself, while ‘Monsieur Dakar’ Stephane Peterhansel has made up a little time overnight (Australian time) after a disastrous Saturday stage on which he dropped almost two hours.

Australia’s Toby Price is right in the mix in the motorcycle category, in fourth place on his factory KTM bike now while a Yamaha and a Honda head the two-wheel field, ridden by France’s Adrien van Beveren and Argentina’s Kevin Benavide respectively, with a KTM ridden by Austrian Matthias Walkner as that manufacturer chases a 17th straight Dakar triumph.

Now only eight minutes off the lead, Price could yet repeat his glorious 2016 victory. “Each day is getting better and better. We caught some time on the leaders today, but that means that on the next stage we have to start close to the front,” said after the latest stage in Bolivia overnight.

“That might end up costing us a bit of time, but we’re feeling good and the bike feels great so we’ve just got to try to keep it on two wheels.”

Organisers have cancelled the comparatively short 240km of competition to Salta that had been scheduled tonight on the last stage in Bolivia because of heavy rain in the area.

Sainz, a dual world rally champion looking to repeat his 2010 Dakar victory, said on arrival in Tupiza overnight: “Every day we make it to the finish is a good day. Everything is going fine. We have to stay focused.”

Al-Attiyah cut the gap between him and Sainz by almost six minutes last night but needs something to go horribly wrong for the Spaniard in the two-wheel-drive 3008 DKR Maxi Peugeot to deliver a historic Dakar win for Toyota with the new South African-built V8 Hilux 4WD.

“We are here at the finish [in Tupiza] and quite happy. I’ve never lived a Dakar like this … we are crazy! We'll do our best in the next six days. If Carlos makes a mistake, we can catch him, but one hour... it’s gonna be difficult,” said Al-Attiyah, the Dakar victor in 2011 and 2015.

Sainz took the lead on Saturday when Peugeot teammate and 13-time Dakar victor (seven times in cars, six on motorcycles) Peterhansel badly damaged his rear suspension when he hit a rock while overtaking a quad biker.

The French legend was stuck for almost two hours after the third Peugeot driver still running after Sebastien Loeb’s retirement in the first week, Cyril Despres, stopped to help out.

“I came out of the tracks a little bit and I didn’t even see the rock – I just felt the impact,” Peterhansel said.

“It destroyed the whole rear of the car – shock absorbers, suspension, transmission, the lot.

“We cannibalised Cyril’s car and left him there. We were about one hour and 50 minutes fixing it.

“We’ve got no physical damage to ourselves and we feel fine. It was just our morale that was hurt.”

What had been a lead of almost half an hour over Sainz at La Paz became a deficit of more than an hour and 20 minutes at the Uyuni bivaouc, where only the competitors (not crews) could work on machinery before Sunday’s second leg of the marathon stage through to Tupiza.

Yet Peterhansel rebounded to win that leg – his 40th stage victory in Dakar history – with Depres, a long way back in the field (about two days!) after his early dramas in this year’s event, equally amazingly less than 50 seconds behind him.

“It was long (about 500km), with tough sections at altitude, but at least we didn't run into trouble,” Peterhansel said.

“I'm not back in the game, because we're talking hours of time difference and I just got a few minutes back.”

“Tthere are still some very complicated stages to come. Anything can still happen as there is a big variety of stages in store [before the finish at Cordoba in Argentina next weekend].”

Sainz was fifth on the latest stage, while it was Al-Attiyah’s third place that narrowed the overall gap between the pair, with Peterhansel another seven minutes back and still with some chance of what would be a miraculous 14th Dakar victory.

South African Giniel De Villiers in another of the new Toyotas has slipped to fifth, now behind Bernhard ten Brinke of the Netherlands in an older HiLux.