MOTORSPORT: Peugeots take charge in Dakar

Toyota got the jump in the 40th Dakar Rally, but the Peugeot 3008DKR Maxis that hadn’t featured among the top 10 on day one have taken charge on day two.

Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah won the short opening stage out of Lima, the capital of Peru, in one of the new

South African-built four-wheel-drive Toyota Hiluxs, but Peugeot’s three French drivers took a clean sweep of the second, a 267-kilometre loop around the town of Pisco, in their two-wheel-drive buggies.

Cyril Depres vaulted from 15th into the lead of the two-week event as he beat Stephane Peterhansel by 48 seconds on the stage, with Sebastien Loeb more than another two minutes back.

In the motorcycle division, Australia’s 2016 Dakar winner Toby Price is 10th after two days on his factory

KTM, improving four places on the second stage. Price said that the left leg he broke in last year’s Dakar and which sidelined him for several months “feels good”.

“The pace is there and my plan is to build things up slowly and take each day as it comes,” Price said.

Spaniard Joan Barreda Bort on a Honda heads the two-wheelers after Britain’s reigning champion Sam

Sunderland led the opening day on his KTM. Aussie Rodney Faggotter, on his second Dakar, is 22nd on a Yamaha and rookie Aussie Scott Britnell 99th after having been 44th on the opening stage.

Nine-time world rally champion Loeb had a horror start to what he figures is his last chance to win the Dakar – because of Peugeot’s withdrawal after this year – when he lost his brakes just 3km into the 31km first stage.

“I did 28km with zero brakes … the handbrake wasn’t working (either). We had no way of slowing down,” Loeb said.

“It was quite tricky over the crests of the dunes – you couldn’t see the downhill.

“There were steep descents, so I had to stop accelerating 200 metres before that to avoid any risks.”

South African Giniel de Villiers in another of the new Toyota Hiluxs was almost 7½ minutes slower than Depres on day two but is third overall ahead of almost 300km of competition tonight, Australian time, that finishes in San Juan de Marcona.

That will be followed by two more stages in Peru before two high-altitude stages in Bolivia and on to the finish at Cordoba in Argentina on January 20.

Day one leader Al-Attiyah dropped almost 15 minutes on day two, largely because of his
co-driver Matthieu Baumel being unwell after 15km.

The fourth Peugeot, driven by Spaniard Carlos Sainz, led early on the second stage but then had two punctures, navigation problems and his co-driver, Lucas Cruz, also became ill.

Sainz – one of only three drivers to have won both the world rally championship and the Dakar – ended up dropping more than 13 minutes and is eighth overall.

Loeb is now fourth outright – behind Depres, ‘Monsieur Dakar’ Peterhansel, the 11-time winner of the marathon (seven times on four wheels after six victories on motorcycles), and de Villiers.

Master strategist Peterhansel said that with the sun high over the dunes on day one he had driven “at the speed of a tractor”.

Al-Attiyah is six minutes behind Loeb, with Argentinian Orlando Terranova the best of the MINI drivers in a superseded four-wheel-drive model in sixth, ahead of Finnish ex-WRC driver Mikko Hirvonen in one of the new two-wheel-drive MINIs from Sven Quandt’s X-raid outfit.

The other two new 3-litre diesel MINI buggies sustained damage and are already out of contention.

American rookie Bryce Menzies rolled his several times and his co-driver, Peter Mortensen, has a broken ankle.

Toyota – yet to win a Dakar (as with the 24 Hours of Le Mans sports car race) – is counting on staying in touch with the Peugeots through the sand dunes of Peru, although team principal Glyn Hall has concerns about how the Japanese normally-aspirated engines will fare above 4000 metres in Bolivia against the French twin-turbo diesels.