Successful day for Audi
At the end of an internship full of changes of front and reversals, Audi once again ended the day with more than a smile. In fact, the 678 km between Ad Dawadimi and Ha'il saw Matias Ekstrom triumph – with the best time of the day. The Swede preceded his teammate and Dakar veteran Stephane Peterhansel for a 1-2 draw for the Ingolstadt team. Closing the podium of this Stage 8 is Guerlain Chicherit, on Toyota.
The most important result, however, is that of the fourth classified, once again on Audi: Carlos Sainz. The Spanish legend, in a stage that was seeing him in serious difficulty – at the 366 km checkpoint he had lost over 3 minutes to Sebastien Loeb – instead reversed the situation in the final stretch of the day, also taking advantage of a navigation error by the crew head of Prodrive.
Sainz takes the lead
Sainz thus moved ahead of his only remaining rival in the standings towards winning the fourth Dakar of his career. The Madrilenian gave 5'43” to Loeb, who came tenth and who had already had to face some problems after just a few km. Furthermore, the nine-time WRC champion could not even count on the support of his teammate Nasser Al-Attiyah, who had engine problems after just 62 km and was out of action for three hours.
The two great rivals are now separated by just under 25 minutes with four stages still to go. Everyone else is very far away with the Brazilian Lucas Moraes (Toyota), third, who has a gap from Sainz of one hour and five minutes.
Dakar 2024, Car ranking – Stage 8 (Top-10)
| POS | PILOT | CAR | TIME / GAP |
| 1 | Ekstrom–Bergkvist | Audi | 3:17.15 |
| 2 | Peterhansel–Boulanger | Audi | +2.45 |
| 3 | Chicherit – Winocq | Toyota | +3.10 |
| 4 | Sainz–Cruz | Audi | +5.13 |
| 5 | Quintero – Zenz | Toyota | +7.52 |
| 6 | De Mevius – Panseri | Toyota | +8.41 |
| 7 | Moraes – Monleon | Toyota | +9.51 |
| 8 | Dumas – Dolphin | Toyota | +10.11 |
| 9 | De Villiers–Murphy | Toyota | +10.18 |
| 10 | Loeb–Lurquin | Prodrive | +11.00 |
Dakar 2024, General car ranking after stage 8 (Top-10)
| POS | PILOT | CAR | TIME / GAP |
| 1 | Sainz–Cruz | Audi | 33:29.10 |
| 2 | Loeb–Lurquin | Prodrive | +24.47 |
| 3 | Moraes – Monleon | Toyota | +1:05.13 |
| 4 | De Mevius – Panseri | Toyota | +1:34.18 |
| 5 | De Villiers–Murphy | Toyota | +1:45.12 |
| 6 | Chicherit – Winocq | Toyota | +1:56.37 |
| 7 | Prokop – Chytka | Ford | +2:01.23 |
| 8 | Serradori – Minaudier | Century | +2:03.15 |
| 9 | Botterill–Cummings | Toyota | +2:24.04 |
| 10 | Vanagas – Sikk | Toyota | +2:34.24 |
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