Peterhansel's authority hit on the Dakar Rally

Carlos Sainz says goodbye mathematically to his options for revalidating the title. The Spanish driver finished the ninth stage in second place behind Peterhansel, after giving up 22 minutes and 30 seconds in the race. The distance with the Frenchman is insurmountable: 1 hour, 2 minutes and 25 seconds.

The Spaniard, together with his co-driver Lucas Cruz, lost 22 minutes and 30 seconds to Peterhansel in this day's race after suffering a puncture at kilometre 98 and then a problem with the brakes which caused him to lose time.

The Qatari sheikh and driver Nasser al-Attiyah was also unlucky. Peterhansel's biggest competitor had a puncture which delayed him by 12 minutes. For his part, the Gaul, nicknamed 'Monsieur Dakar', gave a lesson in endurance in the desert while keeping the gap with his pursuers.

With the exception of the hecatomb, this edition of the Dakar is sentenced in favour of the Frenchman. There are only three stages left and the Frenchman, along with his debut co-driver Edouard Boulanger, have more than half the competition under their belts after today's result.

In the motorbike category, the Argentinean driver Kevin Benavides won the ninth stage of the Dakar Rally on Tuesday. A special stage in which the Spaniard Joan Barreda gave almost a quarter of an hour to the winner, however, it has served to occupy the last place on the provisional podium in the general.

Benavides entered the finish line with a time of 4:49:15, 1:34 ahead of his companion and leader on two wheels, the Chilean Nacho Cornejo. Cornejo was able to retain first place in the general classification with 11:24 over the Argentinean, who climbed from fourth to second place, despite having been responsible for opening up the track. Frenchman Adrien van Beveren completed the podium of the day at 13:52 from the leader.

Meanwhile, the driver from Castellon drove in the leading group during the first kilometres, bordering the Red Sea, but when he entered the sandy tracks he began to lose ground. When he reached the finish line, he left 14:19, which practically lost, except for a surprise, his chances of final victory. At 29 minutes from Cornejo, Barreda is third overall, and will try to defend his final podium in the three remaining days.

All this in a stage in which the Australian Toby Price, the two times winner of the Dakar and second overall so far, has been forced to slow down his aspirations after suffering a traumatism in his left arm and shoulder.

Both the reigning champion and Britain's Sam Sunderland stopped to help him until he was evacuated to a hospital in Tabuk and lost 20 minutes. However, they were well compensated by the organisation in qualifying.

Kevin's brother, Luciano Benavides, from Argentina, who was in third place at kilometre 239 and was tenth overall, also said goodbye after another fall at kilometre 242 which caused an injury to his right shoulder and also forced him to be evacuated to a hospital.

Next Wednesday, the participants will face the tenth and penultimate stage of 583 kilometres between Neom and Al-Ula, 342 of which are special, in which they will leave the sand to go into semi-mountainous areas.