MOTORSPORT: Peugeot 3008 rules in Dakar

The Dakar Rally has had four different stage winners in the cars category in its first four days.

French Dakar veteran Cyril Depres is the latest leader as Peugeot looks set to dominate the 12-day torture test in South America with its two-wheel-drive, 3.0-litre, twin-turbo diesel 3008 DKR rally racer.

Toyota's chances with its four-wheel-drive petrol Hilux already look to be shot. It's Qatari recruit and two-time Dakar victor Nasser Al-Attiyah was out of the event after three stages and its South African star, Giniel De Villiers, winner of the first Dakar outside Africa in 2009, is almost 44 minutes behind new leader Depres.

Australia's Toby Price broke his left thigh when he crashed his KTM motorcycle 45 kilometres from the end of the 416km fourth day as he was headed for his second stage win this year, and eighth of his Dakar career.

Price was airlifted to hospital with his hopes of defending the two-wheel crown over.

However, there has been good news for Australia on the international motorsport stage already this year with former World Rally Championship (WRC) ace Chris Atkinson confirmed for the full 12-round Global Rallycross Championship (GRC) in the US with Subaru.

If the close racing and wild jumps weren't reason enough to tune into the GRC, an Aussie driving for a top team certainly will be.

In F1, Mercedes still has not named its replacement for retired Formula 1 champion Nico Rosberg but Valtteri Bottas has been fitted for a seat in its W08 Hybrid to be unveiled on February 23 before testing begins for the season starting in Melbourne a month later.

And Australia's Daniel Ricciardo has cast doubts on predictions that the new F1 cars, with wider tyres and more aerodynamics, will be as much as the 4-5 seconds faster than the earlier hybrids.

Full Global Rallycross Championship drive for Atkinson
Chris Atkinson finally has a top full-time gig again.

Subaru in America this week announced the 37-year-old former WRC star for the brand as one of its drivers for the 12-round Global Rallycross Championship starting in Phoenix, Arizona, on May 21-22.

Queenslander Atkinson scored 41 stage wins and six podiums in more than 70 starts in the WRC before Subaru folded its Prodrive-run international rally team in the global financial crisis.

He has since won an Asia-Pacific Rally Championship – in 2012 in a Skoda Fabia – and regularly driven Prodrive-built Volkswagens to victory in China in recent years.

Atkinson made his rallycross debut last year, competing in the final few rounds of the GRC and giving Subaru its first pole position in the series.

Subaru's other full-time GRC driver will be Swede Patrik Sandell, who has claimed three wins and 11 podiums since his GRC debut in 2013.

Travis Pastrana and David Higgins will represent Subaru in the new American Rally Association but may be given occasional GRC outings as the manufacturer, whose WRC STI 'Supercars' are prepared by Vermont SportsCar, takes on factory-backed squads from Volkswagen, Honda, Ford and Hyundai.

"The guys are working so hard in Vermont to give Patrik and I something very special to drive in 2017," Atkinson said.

Five-time Dakar bike winners comes to fore on four wheels
Cyril Depres won the Dakar five times on motorcycles but his somewhat surprising victory for Peugeot on the fourth stage of this year's marathon was his first in the event on four wheels.

It came as the French manufacturer's more fancied French drivers, nine-time WRC champion and last year's Dakar pacesetter Sebastien Loeb and 12-time winner on two wheels and four (including last year for Peugeot in a 2008 DKR) Stephane Peterhansel, lost time.

It was even worse for Peugeot's other superstar, Spaniard Carlos Sainz, a winner of both the WRC and Dakar, who is more than two hours behind Depres after rolling near the end of day four and getting stuck in a ravine. Having been poised to take the overall lead, Sainz dropped to 12th in the overall classifications and may be out of the rally.

Depres had started the day fifth but benefited from the misfortune of others in the fog, heavy rain and high altitudes on the leg from Salvador De Jujuy in north-west Argentina to Tupiza in southern Bolivia.

The event began in Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, on Monday, with 83 cars, 146 motorcycles, 50 trucks and 37 quads.

Temperatures have been as high as 40 degrees in the event renowned for the harshest terrain on earth.

Al-Attiyah won the first 39km competition for Toyota, but the 2011 overall victor for Volkswagen and 2015 winner for MINI was forced to retire on Wednesday night, having ripped a front wheel off his Hilux, hitting a hole and losing more than two hours.

Loeb took the second stage and Peterhansel the third, although Loeb was still the overall leader, before Depres made it a hat-trick for Peugeot on the fourth.

Depres now leads Peterhansel by a little over four minutes with Loeb another 2 minutes and 40 seconds back in fourth, behind the third-placed X-Raid MINI of another ex-WRC star, Finn Mikko Hirvonen.

Spaniard Nani Roma is fifth in a Hilux prepared by Overdrive, 10 minutes behind Depres.

Peterhansel had been at a standstill for 15 minutes on the fourth stage while Loeb dropped more than 25 minutes, stopping several times.

Depres opened a gap at the Bolivian border and won the stage by almost 11 minutes from Hirvonen, with Roma third.

"It's pretty amazing to win a stage after only three Dakars in a car," Depres said.

"It was a long day; it was a tough day. We started in some small dunes at high altitude and the car had maybe 20, 30 or 40 per cent less power. It wasn't easy to avoid getting stuck.

"After the beginning we were leading, then Carlos (Sainz) overtook us and we followed him for the whole day – but unfortunately on a twisty track he made a mistake and he rolled."

Tonight, Australian time, the field will move across the Bolivian Altilano with the altitude peaking at 4,500 metres and a variety of surfaces, including two sections of dunes, in the day's 500km of competition.

The event ends in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, on Saturday, January 14, South American time.

Early in the event Sainz complained about Toyota having been given a 2mm increase in its air restrictor diameter compared to Peugeot, which had its restrictor reduced by 1mm after dominating last year's event.

"Now the Toyota has 40-50 horsepower against us," said the Spaniard, the 2010 Dakar winner for VW.

Toyota's De Villiers countered Sainz's claim by saying: "The Peugeot is still 400kg lighter than us. All the cars have exactly the same restrictor [at 38mm]. They all breathe through the same hole. That's the fairest it can be.

"The technology in the diesel is so good now that it's no reason why they should have a bigger restrictor than a petrol car."

And Toyota Overdrive's Roma chimed in that "the rule is for the average of 2000 metres of altitude".

Meanwhile, Aussie hero Price's motorcycle crash has given Honda a big chance of ending KTM's long-running Dakar dominance.

Spaniard Joan Barreda has been leading the two-wheel division on his Honda and battled with Price throughout the fourth stage until the Australian's misfortune.

Price's Austrian KTM teammate Matthias Walkner caught Barreda at the end of the day for a 2-minute win, but the Spaniard still had an 18-minute overall lead – until he was one of several Honda riders penalised an hour for refuelling in the wrong area.

That has handed the lead to Chilean Pablo Quintanilla on a Husqvarna.

Slovakian rider Ivan Jakes was struck by lightning during the third stage but was not injured and has continued racing. He was totally amped afterward.