Leonid Novitskiy wins Dakar Rally opener as Nassar Al-Attiyah hits early problem

The relatively short 57-kilometre Mar del Plata to Santa Rosa stage was marred by the death of bike competitor Jorge Boero, who suffered a fall at the 55km point and went into cardiac arrest. Medical crews attended within five minutes, but were unable to save the Argentinean's life.

2011 car winner Al-Attiyah, now driving for Robby Gordon's Hummer team following Volkswagen's departure, lost nine minutes on the stage when his engine lost oil pressure. Gordon stopped and towed his team-mate to the finish.

"We will see, but this does not look good," admitted Al-Attiyah. "And, whatever happens, this is not a good way to start the Dakar."

With their likely main rivals in trouble, X-Raid's Minis filled the top three at the end of the stage, with Novitskiy five seconds ahead of Krzysztof Holowczyc and nine in front of Stephane Peterhansel.

"Today's special was very short, so we put the pedal on the metal, especially in the sandy sector," said Novitskiy. "We only found another car on the course, but I was able to overtake it without any problems. In short: a good result for a perfect day."

Giniel de Villiers' Toyota and Gordon complete the early top five.

Leading positions after stage one:

Pos  Driver                   Car         Time/Gap
 1.  Leonid Novitskiy         Mini          32m12s
 2.  Krzysztof Holowczyc      Mini            + 5s
 3.  Stephane Peterhansel     Mini            + 9s
 4.  Giniel de Villiers       Toyota         + 15s
 5.  Robby Gordon             Hummer         + 49s
 6.  Carlos Sousa             Great Wall     + 52s
 7.  Christian Lavieille      Dessoude     + 1m00s
 8.  Bernhard ten Brinke      Mitsubishi   + 1m20s
 9.  Orlando Terranova        Toyota       + 1m56s
10.  Ricardo Leal dos Santos  Mini         + 2m13s