Al Rajhi wins seventh special over Peterhansel

Frenchman Peterhansel was about to say goodbye to the Dakar after breaking a suspension triangle just 40 kilometres from the finish. In addition, at the moment of the break he was leading the stage and maintaining a 6 minute advantage over his immediate pursuers in the general classification, the Spaniard Carlos Sáinz and the Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah.

However, the French was able to finish the stage without losing time to either of them. Peterhansel extended the lead with Carlos by 27 seconds and with Al-Attiyah by two minutes. He continues therefore to lead the General Ranking with almost 8 minutes of advantage over the Qatari and more than 41 minutes with Sainz. Peterhansel will have to work hard to ensure that his car can compete in full condition tomorrow.

The special stage victory of 453 kilometres was finally for the Saudi Arabian Yazeed Al-Rajhi, a Toyota driver, who passed the stage with a 48 second advantage over Peterhansel and 2:15 over Carlos Sáinz.

The Spaniard Carlos Sáinz faced a stage with the always difficult opening, after having won the previous one. In spite of all this, including a puncture and several navigation errors, he had a promising start, which although it got worse in the middle of the stage, he managed to come back at the end. However, the distance with Peterhansel makes him depend on some errors that, given the regularity of the Frenchman -he leads the general classification without any stage wins-, it does not seem that they will arrive.

This seventh special stage, which is run without mechanical assistance, was won by the American Brabec, the reigning Dakar champion. Close behind was his Honda team-mate, the Chilean Cornejo, who finished 2:07 behind the Californian. A double for Honda which also means that the Chilean rider will be leading the General Championship in motorbikes by just one second.

Price, the Australian rider who was leading the general classification until this stage, lost almost three minutes to the Chilean rider and finished the stage in seventh place, leaving the General classification very tight with up to 10 riders in 17 minutes.

Barreda, the Spanish Honda rider, who opened the stage like Sáinz, is 10 minutes away from the leadership of the General, after losing a little more than 9 minutes in this stage, something that does not leave a bad taste in his mouth considering the difficulty that the opening of the stage entails.