A day that could represent a turning point
Today and tomorrow the pilots of Dakar they are called to face a 'double' stage that began today. Until 4pm local time the crews could cover as many kilometers as possible before stopping in one of the seven bivouacs distributed along the route and then completing the remaining kilometers tomorrow.
After just 50 km, as we already reported in the morning, there was the first turning point: the leader of the general classification Yazeed Al-Rajhi he in fact got into an accident while tackling a dune which led to irreparable damage to the Toyota Hilux. The retirement was inevitable for the Al-Rajhi-Gottschalk pair, both unharmed after the crash.
Carlos Sainz right from the start he literally flew in the desert and ended the day ahead of everyone with his Audi brand mate Mattias Ekstrom and Sebastien Loeb managing not to lose too much ground by keeping the delay to more than four and five minutes respectively.
Nasser Al-Attiyah, however, in the first part of the stage he had navigation problems and is currently estimated to be third overall, 21 minutes behind Carlos Sainz, with Mattias Ekstrom second at 15 minutes. Loeb is fourth at 36 minutes, while technical problems put Stephane Peterhansel out of action, who today lost almost two hours to Sainz. Toyota started in the lead this morning thanks to Al-Rajhi, now the best driver is Lucas Moraes, fifth, over an hour behind the Iberian driver.
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