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Robby Gordon's Dakar hopes virtually over as Stephane Peterhansel increases lead

Robby Gordon's slim hopes of winning the Dakar Rally took another nosedive on Thursday as Stephane Peterhansel increased his lead by winning stage 11

Having lost over 17 minutes to Peterhansel and dropped to third the previous day, Gordon set a hot pace as the rally left the Chilean town of Arica and headed towards Arequipa in Peru.

The Hummer driver had pulled back nearly three minutes on Peterhansel's X-raid Mini by the third of eight checkpoints on the 297-mile stage. But he slowed dramatically shortly afterwards, falling six minutes behind Peterhansel over the next 60 miles due to a broken CV joint boot. He then stopped for over an hour to change the part on the link road between the two parts of the stage.

Gordon, already competing under appeal after event organisers disqualified him on Tuesday for running an illegal tyre re-inflation system, was 1h11m off the pace as a result and fell from third place to fourth.

Peterhansel's stage win came by 3m44s from his X-raid team-mate Nani Roma and increased his overall advantage over the Spaniard to 22m49s with only two stages remaining.

Former Dakar winner Giniel de Villiers was fourth quickest through the stage and is now a comfortable third overall; the Toyota driver 1h11m behind Peterhansel and a likely 20 minutes clear of Gordon.

Leonid Novitskiy retained his fifth place with the fifth fastest time, while Krzysztof Holowczyc recovered from his Wednesday maladies with sixth fastest.

There was bad news for Carlos Sousa, who began the day sixth. His Great Wall stopped in the dunes inside the first 100 miles of the stage. Despite losing almost an hour, he only lost one place.

Leading positions after stage 11:

Pos  Driver                  Car           Time/Gap
 1.  Stephane Peterhansel    Mini         32h38m05s
 2.  Nani Roma               Mini          + 22m49s
 3.  Giniel de Villiers      Toyota      + 1h11m01s
 4.  Robby Gordon            Hummer      + 2h10m31s
 5.  Leonid Novitskiy        Mini        + 2h11m10s
 6.  Lucio Alvarez           Toyota      + 3h53m51s
 7.  Carlos Sousa            Great Wall  + 4h04m43s
 8.  Bernard ten Brinke      Mitsubishi  + 4h17m36s
 9.  Ricardo Leal dos Santos Mini        + 4h38m11s
10.  Duncan Vos              Toyota      + 4h50m21s

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