HA’IL, Saudi Arabia — Toyota’s defending champion Nasser Al-Attiyah retained a comfortable lead of more than an hour after the Dakar Rally’s seventh stage in Saudi Arabia on another tough day for rivals Audi.
The Qatari, who played it safe in the first part of a marathon stage, had earlier apologised for an outburst on social media during the week about a rule change he feared would favour Audi.
The German marque’s hopes of a first Dakar win for an electrically-powered car evaporated for another year when leading challengers Stephane Peterhansel and Carlos Sainz both crashed in the desert dunes.
Sainz started in 68th place and with a penalty of 28 hours and 45 minutes for failing to complete the sixth stage, while Peterhansel withdrew after co-driver Edouard Boulanger ended up in hospital.
Audi suffered a further setback when remaining contender Mattias Ekstroem, winner of last weekend’s prologue, stopped with mechanical problems and Sainz halted alongside to provide assistance.
The seventh stage from Riyadh to Al Duwadimi, featuring a 333km special stage and 861km in all, was won by Saudi Arabia’s Yazeed Al Rajhi for Overdrive Racing — his third career stage win and first of 2023.
Al-Attiyah now leads South African team mate Henk Lategan by an hour one minute and four seconds, a loss of just five minutes overall.
Before the fifth stage he had accused organisers of “killing the race early” with the decision to allow more power to cars using renewable energy.
“In the heat of the moment, I reacted harshly to the FIA’s EOT (Equivalence of Technology) decision,” he posted on Instagram after the sixth stage.
“I like to defend my title fairly and at the first instant the decision did not seem fair. I now understand the situation better, and would like to apologise for my earlier post.”
“We try really to push like crazy. We take a lot of risks. The other teams have more horsepower but OK, I´m happy to finish today without any problems,” said the Qatari according to Reuters.
“I think I injured a little bit my neck in one compression. I hope it´s not too bad tomorrow,” said the 60-year-old of the desert conditions. “We hope we can carry on and go to the end. It´s still a long way. We need to keep pushing”.
Only the cars and trucks were racing with organisers cancelling the stage for motorcycles due to the weather and rider fatigue. The bikes and quads instead took the road to Al Duwadimi.
American Skyler Howes leads the motorcycle classification for Husqvarna, one minute and 55 seconds clear of Australian Toby Price with Argentina’s Kevin Benavides third.
Nine-times world rally champion Sebastien Loeb rolled his car around 100km from the finish and lost almost 15 minutes. The Frenchman is out of the top 10 and nearly two hours behind the leader.
In the motorcycle category, French rider Adrien van Beveren won the stage ahead of Chilean Jose Ignacio Cornejo and Australian Toby Price.
