The challenge between Nasser Al-Attiyah and Sébastien Loeb for the overall victory in the 44th edition of the Dakar is about to come to an end. At the end of the hostilities there are just 2 stages left and the gap between the two is over 32 minutes.
After today’s stage, which brought the caravan from Wadi Ad Dawasir to Bisha, Loeb realized that he had recovered just over a minute from the leader of the general classification and had little hope of being able to win this edition of the rally raid. famous in the world.
This has not only been thought of. He just said it at the end of today’s stage. An awareness that will certainly hurt the 9-time WRC world champion, author of the best Dakar of his career so far.
“We cannot do more than we have done up to now. We are pushing hard in all stages, doing our best. But the gap is too great. So that’s the way it is.”
“We will continue to push tomorrow and the last day. Then we will see in the end what we can grasp. But we have to do much more, the gap from Al-Attiyah is too big.”
Those who feel the scent of victory are Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa driver Nasser Al-Attiyah. The Qatari, great protagonist of the first 10 stages, intends not to take unnecessary risks, but to maintain a good pace that will allow him to reach the finish line of the last stage with an advantage such as to celebrate what would be his fourth victory career in the Dakar after those obtained in 2011 with Volkswagen, in 2015 with MINI and in 2019 with Toyota.
“I don’t want to take any risks, I just want to have a good pace. It doesn’t matter if I lose 2 or 3 minutes from Loeb. Losing just one minute and 35 seconds from him today was great, we did a good job.”
“Today we had no punctures, no problems with the car, Matthieu’s (Baumel, the co-driver) navigation was excellent. Tomorrow we start in a good position and we are quite happy”.
Last year Al-Attiyah was the rider who won the most stages, yet he couldn’t win the race. This year he seems to have capitalized on that lesson learned just 12 months ago and is now one, or rather two, steps away from absolute victory.
“In general we did a good job. It doesn’t matter to win stages every day. Last year we won 7 stages, but we finished second. This year we won 2 stages but we are leading. This is a good feeling.”
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