Victory in the 7th stage of the Dakar rally-raid was won by Yazid Al Raji, a highly experienced Saudi driver from the Belgian Overdrive Racing team, who drives Toyota Hilux Overdrive off-road vehicles.
On Friday he had technical problems, so this morning he only started at the end of the fourth ten, but showed excellent speed and finished with the fastest time – this is his third such success in the Dakar stages and the first in 2023.
However, in the individual standings, Al-Raji is a distant 26th, losing more than five hours to the leader, Nasser Al-Attiyah. The Qatari factory Toyota driver was simply in no rush today, sparing his strength and technique as the finish is still very far away – both will still be needed.
He finished stage 7 in 14th place, 19+ minutes from Al Raja, but a Toyota spokesperson said that was the plan: “Everything went according to plan, we wanted to pass today’s special stage at a leisurely pace, let Sebastien Loeb catch up with us, just give way to him. We think tomorrow’s stage will be more dangerous.”
The aforementioned Loeb finished ninth and second place was taken by another driver, who drives the same Prodrive Hunter all-terrain vehicle as the nine-time world rally champion – it was Lithuanian Vaidotas Zala.
Matthias Ekström, a driver from the Audi works team, claimed a spot on the podium, for which it was important to recover somewhat after yesterday’s problems, but on Saturday they continued. With very little left for the stage finish, the Swedish racer’s electric all-terrain vehicle crashed into a stone, severely damaging the rear left suspension on the Audi RS Q e-tron E2 with tail number 211.
Carlos Sainz and his co-driver Lucas Cruz, who had nothing to lose, stopped to support their partner and help him quickly repair his car. It’s hard to say how much this helped Ekström, but he still made it to the finish of the special stage, albeit penultimate – almost three and a half hours behind the leader.
In today’s light SUV class, American Mitchel Guthrie of the Red Bull Off-Road Jr. team was the fastest. Team USA, but in the general classification after seven stages he takes only 27th place, and the Belgian Guillaume de Mevius is in the lead, speaking on the OT3 car, also built by the Belgian specialists of Overdrive Racing.
In the T4 category, the stage was won by the Lithuanian Rokash Batsyushka, for whom this is already the third victory in the special stages this year.
Although there is now no Russian KAMAZ master team in the Dakar for known reasons, the rally-raid press service is a constant reminder. We quote a short report on Saturday’s results in the T5 class: “The best time today was set by Janus van Kasteren, who was the fastest racer last year of all those who did not drive KAMAZ trucks.”
The Dutchman drives a hooded Iveco Powerstar and managed to win back almost four minutes on Saturday from Ales Loprais, who leads the general classification, where van Kasteren is still third. It is true that the eminent Czech and his team, driving the Praga V4S DKR truck, will not give up and today they finished second.
On Sunday morning, the Dakar participants will go to the start of the 8th stage, and if today the riders had to rest on motorcycles and ATVs, then tomorrow they will continue to fight. The length of the leg from Al-Dumadimi to Riyadh is 476 km, of which 346 is the high-speed section. Part of the distance goes through the mountains, part – through the sands of the endless Saudi desert, and on Monday everyone will have a long-awaited day of rest.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
