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Al-Attiyah closes in on Dakar victory

Nasser Al-Attiyah took a big step towards his maiden Dakar win after Volkswagen team-mate Carlos Sainz hit trouble on the 11th stage of the event

The reigning champion, who was second behind Al-Attiyah until yesterday, lost over an hour after breaking his suspension at the 410-km point of the stage.

As a result of the problem, Sainz dropped to third in the standings and is now nearly 80 minutes behind Al-Attiyah and half an hour behind Giniel de Villiers, second in another Volkswagen.

"I pushed as hard as I could and when I was in Nasser's dust, I didn't see a hole," said Sainz. "I went straight into it and broke the suspension.

"I tried everything I could to go on the attack, because I haven't come here to finish second. For me it's first or nothing, so finishing second or third is the same."

Al-Attiyah added: "Today we had a good start. We just stayed behind 'Peter'. Everything was okay, the car worked very well and there were no problems. There was a lot of dust on the stage, but the good thing is that we finished and we'll see what we can do tomorrow.

"Tomorrow will be a different day as well. I don't know what happened to Carlos. I hope he can fix his wheel. Today I think Carlos was pushing a lot. From my side I'm really happy, I did a very good job and so did my co-pilot and the team.

"I'm quite happy and I will do my best to reach Buenos Aires. Tomorrow will be a different day and we will open the stage, but I don't think there will be any problems for us and we'll take it really easy."

Al-Attiyah won today's stage from BMW's Stephane Peterhansel, the Frenchman crossing the finish line just 1.5 minutes behind the Qatari. De Villiers was third in the stage.

"Carlos's problems will allow Nasser to have a much more comfortable last two days," said Peterhansel, fourth in the standings.

"Carlos already lost the Dakar two days from the finish two years ago. We know that it is always complicated to win the Dakar and he's seen just how much this time.

"As for us, there isn't much left to be gained by going out to attack. We're in fourth and third place is too far away. It would be a shame to end up having an accident. Even if, for us, fourth position isn't much to write home about, it would be good for the team and the mechanics to get the car back to Buenos Aires in this position."

The rally finishes on Sunday in the Argentinean capital.

Stage 11 results:

Pos  Driver                   Car         Time/Gap
 1.  Nasser Al-Attiyah        Volkswagen  4h17m27s
 2.  Stephane Peterhansel     BMW          + 1m13s
 3.  Giniel de Villiers       Volkswagen   + 4m52s
 4.  Krzysztof Holowczyc      BMW         + 13m17s
 5.  Ricardo Leal dos Santos  BMW         + 27m13s
 6.  Guilherme Spinelli       Mitsubishi  + 34m55s
 7.  Christian Lavieille      Nissan      + 35m33s
 8.  Erik van Loon            Mitsubishi  + 54m49s
 9.  Alfie Cox                Nissan      + 58m57s
10.  Matthias Kahle           SMG         + 59m24s

Overall standings:

Pos  Driver                   Car            Time/Gap
 1.  Nasser Al-Attiyah        Volkswagen    14h16m01s
 2.  Giniel de Villiers       Volkswagen     + 51m49s
 3.  Carlos Sainz             Volkswagen   + 1h27m27s
 4.  Stephane Peterhansel     BMW          + 1h40m45s
 5.  Krzysztof Holowczyc      BMW          + 4h02m54s
 6.  Mark Miller              Volkswagen   + 4h42m38s
 7.  Ricardo Leal dos Santos  BMW          + 6h15m38s
 8.  Christian Lavieille      Nissan       + 7h02m56s
 9.  Guilherme Spinelli       Mitsubishi   + 8h00m52s
10.  Matthias Kahle           SMG         + 14h18m14s

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