Carlos Sainz did not have his best day in the 2024 Dakar Rally and gave up the race lead. The Madrid Audi driver suffered a notable scare that he resolved without major loss of time in the race, in a third stage won by Lucas Moraes (Toyota) with a time of 4h14m51s. The 32-year-old Brazilian, with the navigation of the experienced Armand Monleón, a 37-year-old Spanish co-pilot, thus achieved his first victory in a special after being the great revelation of the rally during his debut in the last edition. Yazeed Al Rajhi, his Saudi teammate at Toyota, is the new overall leader with a 29s lead over Sainz.
“It has not been an ideal stage for me. At the beginning we made a navigation error and we lost five minutes,” lamented the Spaniard. “Then we were going fast, right behind Mattias [Ekström], and in the middle of the dust we found a big hole. We almost capsized, but it was just a puncture. We have had to stop and reset the accident detection system and some other things,” he explained. In a delicate special, since the vehicles will only have two hours of service before entering the parc ferme in the Al Salamiya bivouac, avoiding the accident was already a relief for him and Lucas Cruz, his co-driver.
The 437 kilometer special between Al Duwadimi and Al Salamiya offered a mix of all the terrains of Saudi Arabia, with rocky roads, canyons, small mountains, some dunes and sandy valleys on the menu of the day. Navigation was complicated, especially for those in charge of opening the track, and the Prodrive of Nasser Al-Attiyah and Sébastien Loeb, two of the big favorites, especially suffered from the hardness of the course. The Qatari was able to save the furniture and reached the finish line 1m33s behind the winner of the day after suffering three punctures and reaching the finish line with three wheels, but the work of the mechanics will now be essential to allow him to compete this Tuesday in the almost 300 kilometers of special to Al Hofuf. The Frenchman was not so lucky and is more than 24 minutes behind the new leader.
After introducing this hybrid stage format last year, without allowing normal attendance or completely restricting the intervention of the teams, the organization tightened the screws of the format a bit by prohibiting several tricks that the competitors devised to advance work before receiving the FIA seal. It is prohibited to go out and touch the car, nor to touch the phones to notify the teams of any damage, among many other details to seal those holes in the regulations. When the assistance is finished, only the pilots will be able to travel to the bivouac that the organization has prepared in the middle of nowhere.
Not only will it be a hard night for them, but the mechanics will have to cover more than 600 kilometers of road and arrive late in the morning to Al Hofuf, where the main Dakar camp is located these two days. A good beating after three stages in which the competitors have already accumulated more than 2,000 kilometers.
On motorcycles, penalties give victory to Kevin Benavides
The story of the third stage of the 2024 Dakar Rally on motorcycles was starred by two of the active two-time champions of the event. Kevin Benavides, defender of the crown, reached the last checkpoint leading, but collapsed in the final stretch of the special to finish third at the finish line. It was Pablo Quintanilla, after working hand in hand on the strategy with his teammate and compatriot Nacho Cornejo, who took the victory of the day until the penalties turned the table upside down and handed the victory on a plate to the winner of 2023 and 2021. The 34-year-old Argentine from Salta already has nine partial victories in the rally.
Sam Sunderland, winner of the Dakar in 2017 and 2022, abandoned after suffering a mechanical problem with his GasGas at kilometer 11 and waiting more than three and a half hours for a bottle of oil that did not ultimately prevent his retirement. The Briton, who also achieved two third positions in 2019 and 2021, leaves the rally early for the seventh time in eleven participations. Joan Barreda was in the mix until her last breath, but the penalties for exceeding the speed limit also threw all her work to the ground. The 40-year-old from Castellón, second at the finish line, finished 15th and is 12th overall, 37m30s behind the leader, his Hero teammate Ross Branch.
The Valencian driver has already accumulated a 20-minute penalty for exceeding the established speed in delicate sections. This Monday, he exceeded the 30km/h limit on two occasions, riding at 85km/h and 98km/h respectively. “I had some problems with the radar,” Barreda justified.
This Monday night, the competitors face their first evening with minimal comforts in the middle of the desert after passing the semi-marathon. “We are back to the past, to the classic spirit of the Dakar. All in store, without logistics. The atmosphere is always nice here, there is a main tent for the competitors, and so we all have dinner together and spend time chatting,” celebrated Stéphane Peterhansel, the rider with the most stage and overall victories in both motorcycles and cars.
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