3 minute read
A strong finish to stage seven enabled Australian motorcyclist Daniel Sanders to retain a handsome lead in the Dakar Rally with four days remaining.
After three top ten finishes in his four outings Australian motorcyclist Daniel Sanders is within sight of a first Dakar Rally overall victory after safely negotiating a difficult seventh stage.
The 30-year-old Victorian restricted his losses to four minutes, 30 seconds after having to open up on the 483 km special across the dunes of the Saudi Arabian desert.
That put him still more than 11 minutes ahead of his nearest challenger, Spain's Tosha Schareina, with four stages remaining.
Argentina's Luciano Benavides won the stage ahead of Adrien Van Beveren, after the pair were re-credited with the time they spent assisting Pablo Quintanilla. The Chilean fell during the stage, suffering a shoulder injury that forced him to withdraw. A two-time runner-up he was seventh overall.
This dropped Schareina down to third on the stage with Frenchman Van Beveren third overall a further ten minutes back. Sanders' KTM teammate Benavides is fourth with the rest of the top six all riding a Honda.
"It was very, very tricky at the beginning and I lost a lot of time early on," Sanders said.
"After that, I got into a really good rhythm and the navigation was easier but you had to be really switched on because we lost so much time at the beginning."
"It was really important to stay focused all day and push all the way to the end. It was a good finish, a strong finish compared to a bad start."
In the Ultimate car category Toyota's Henk Lategan dominated Monday's stage despite a speed violation and the win extended his overall lead after the previous day's chaotic race had virtually wiped out his advantage over closest rival Yazeed Al-Rajhi.
Dakar Rally organisers were forced to erase any gains or losses for a 20km stretch during Sunday's stage over a road book note error, and Lategan's lead had been cut to 21 seconds.
Lategan bounced back, triumphing on the special from Al Duwadimi to Riyadh, with Al-Rajhi down in sixth, coming in five minutes and 20 seconds behind the South African, with the local driver now five minutes and 41 seconds adrift overall.
Tuesday's stage takes the drivers from Riyadh to Haradh with a 357 km special. A quick route Sanders believes it will be the last difficult navigation and he's pleased to be going out in seventh.
with agencies
