Al-Attiyah closes in with stage win
Nasser Al-Attiyah cut his Volkswagen team-mate Carlos Sainz's lead in half by winning stage seven of the Dakar Rally, while VW's main rival Stephane Peterhansel lost further ground
The gap between Sainz and Al-Attiyah in the outright standings is now down to 1m22s after the latter won today's Arica to Antofagasta stage by 1m20s. The stage was reduced to 252 kilometres of competitive running to give the field a slightly easier start to the second week of the gruelling event.
Peterhansel had been getting closer to Sainz until a series of punctures on Friday, and today started with further tyre trouble for the X-Raid BMW driver. He drove more cautiously thereafter, and ended up losing seven minutes to the leaders, leaving him 21 minutes behind in third overall.
That has increased VW's chances of a top three sweep, with Giniel de Villiers now within 11m34s of Peterhansel having taken five minutes out of the Dakar legend's advantage today.
Peterhansel's team-mate Krzysztof Holowczyc also had punctures today, but with the pursuing VW of Mark Miller losing time when time with both a puncture and struggling to find a way point after an excursion, Holowczyc remains fifth.
However fellow X-Raid man Orlando Terranova, who had been Argentina's top representative in seventh, is out after crashing heavily 200km into the stage. That made it two accident retirements in as many days for X-Raid, which lost its new Mini Countryman yesterday after Guerlain Chicherit had a multiple roll while doing some practice mileage during the rest day.
Stage seven results: Pos Driver Car Time/Gap 1. Nasser Al-Attiyah Volkswagen 2h40m57s 2. Carlos Sainz Volkswagen + 1m20s 3. Giniel de Villiers Volkswagen + 2m56s 4. Stephane Peterhansel BMW + 7m40s 5. Krzysztof Holowczyc BMW + 17m00s 6. Christian Lavieille Nissan + 20m07s 7. Ricardo Leal dos Santos BMW + 20m48s 8. Guilherme Spinelli Mitsubishi + 22m14s 9. Nani Roma Nissan + 24m39s 10. Tonnie van Deijne Mitsubishi + 35m10s Overall standings: Pos Driver Car Time/Gap 1. Carlos Sainz Volkswagen 23h21m58s 2. Nasser Al-Attiyah Volkswagen + 1m22s 3. Stephane Peterhansel BMW + 21m11s 4. Giniel de Villiers Volkswagen + 32m45s 5. Krzysztof Holowczyc BMW + 1h28m59s 6. Mark Miller Volkswagen + 2h13m44s 7. Guilherme Spinelli Mitsubishi + 2h38m50s 8. Christian Lavieille Nissan + 3h26m41s 9. Ricardo Leal dos Santos BMW + 3h30m40s 10. Matthias Kahle SMG + 5h45m10s
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments