It hasn't been the best of days for Nasser Al Attiyah in the 46th edition of the Dakar Rally, as the Qatari driver has almost mathematically said goodbye to his chances of victory. With his car, the reigning world champion and outgoing champion in the Saudi desert ventured into the 48 Hours Stage, the one that led all participants to challenge the dunes for two whole days and complete the 549 timed kilometers to reach Shubaytah .
By opening the track, and suffering a lot for this reason, the Prodrive driver lost a lot of ground to Carlos Sainz who was aiming for the lead of the general classification, which came with Yazeed Al Rajhi's accident. However, everything changed at mile 530, where he was stopped after more than two hours due to a mechanical problem with his vehicle, one of the Hunter's great woes.
“It was not a good day,” acknowledged Nasser Al Attiyah. “We broke a steering bearing 50 kilometers from the finish and we had to wait for assistance to repair it. It's a shame, because we had a good special stage despite having started in the lead yesterday. In any case, we will continue and see what we can Do”.
Photo by: ASO
#200 Nasser Racing Prodrive Hunter: Nasser Al-Attiyah, Mathieu Baumel
Furthermore, the Qatari lived up to some words he said a few days ago, in which he recognized that he would have helped his teammate, Sébastien Loeb, if he had the chance to win his first Touareg trophy, in case he had not succeeded to keep up with the others, especially Carlos Sainz, who is the leader of the general classification: “The idea is to help Seb [Loeb] to win the Dakar. I will do everything I can to make this happen.”
Carlos Sainz managed to open a twenty minute gap on his teammate Mattias Ekstrom, while he is almost half an hour ahead of the Frenchman from Bahrain Raid Xtreme. For his part, Nasser Al Attiyah is two hours and forty minutes behind the best Audi, so it will be a miracle if he manages to catch up.
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