Dakar: The fifth stage of the rally attack was won by Al-Attiyah

In the fifth stage of the Dakar Rally, held on Wednesday, famous Qatari racer Nasser Al-Attiyah, winner of last year’s supermarathon, distinguished himself, having achieved a total of five such achievements. In 2024 he will participate for the first time in the Prodrive Hunter off-road racing prototype and achieved his first stage victory today.

Crew No. 200 arrived at the finish almost two minutes earlier than the French duo, which included Guerlain Chichery, a famous and experienced racer, and his co-driver Alex Vinok. They drive a Toyota Hilux, but in the overall standings based on the five-day results, they are not even in the top ten. And the leader is the Saudi driver Yazed Al-Rajhi, their teammate at the Overdrive Racing team.

Today’s stage win moved Al-Attiyah up to second place in the general classification, pushing Carlos Sainz, his eternal rival, to third place. Sainz was unlucky again today, he lost more than nine minutes over the distance and only set the 16th fastest time.

The best driver of the factory Audi Sport team, which raced the RS Q e-tron E2 electric prototypes that were literally packed with modern technology, was Sainz’s teammate Matthias Ekström, who posted the 7th fastest time. Overall, there are six teams in the top ten driving Toyota SUVs, including the Russian duo Denis Krotov and Konstantin Zhiltsov, who took 10th place and performed well today.

But they ended up in the top ten thanks to the fact that Sébastien Loeb, the winner of yesterday’s stage, was penalized today: today he crossed the finish line in ninth place, but was penalized: a full 15 minutes were added to his result added, and as a result, the crew of the nine-time world rally champion went to rule 39 of the Wednesday protocol.

After the finish, Loeb commented on the situation in an interesting way, hinting that compared to the stage winner, his partner, he deliberately chose this tactic to start later on Thursday. Al-Attiyah, who showed the best time today, will be the first on the route tomorrow.

“Nasser and I have different tactics,” Sébastien said. “He wants to start early and is confident. I wouldn’t act like that. He knows the features of the desert better than I do; here he is in his element. I preferred to start later and follow in the footsteps of my rivals. We lost a lot of time today, but we hope to make up for it tomorrow.”

In the motorcycle class, the stage was won by experienced Chilean Pablo Quintanilla, rider of the Honda factory team, but in the general classification he is seventh and Ross Branch, riding in the Indian Hero 450 Rally, returned to the leading position.

In the ATV category, Brazilian Marcelo Medeiros achieved the fastest finish. He rides a Yamaha Raptor 700, this is his third victory on the stage, but it is not he who is the leader in the class, but the Argentinian Manuel Andujar, who showed the best time yesterday.

The first victory during this year’s rally raid stage in the Challenger category was achieved by the Chilean crew of Francisco Lopez Contardo and Juan Pablo Vinagre, who conquered the Arabian sands in a lightweight Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo SUV. In this class, then called T3, they won the Dakar in 2022.

But based on the results of five stages, they take only 4th place, and Eric Gochal is still in the lead there – today the young Pole showed the 3rd fastest time.

Perhaps some consolation for Sebastien Loeb after today’s fine was the success of his Sebastien Loeb Racing team: the French Xavier de Saultre and Martin Bonnet won the stage in the off-road vehicle category, officially called SSV or T4.

In the cargo class, the Czech trio Martin Masik, Frantisek Tomasek and David Svanda, riding an Iveco Powerstar, achieved their first stage victory in this Dakar. The Dutchman Janus van Casteren, who had largely won the previous stages and was in the lead after five days of rally raid, was only tenth today and lost almost 24 minutes to the winner. But after five days his lead in this category is almost the same, he has a lead of more than 22 minutes over the same Masik.

But the next stage of the Dakar could bring serious changes to the balance of power, if only because the participants face the most difficult test: a 48-hour stage with a total length of 835 km, of which 626 km are high-speed sections. .

The stage will last two days with a night break, and this is the first time in the Dakar program, and the conditions the teams will face are more than Spartan. The bottom line is that the stage starts early in the morning, but by 4 p.m. on Thursday everyone must reach one of six predetermined rest areas spread across the Rub al-Khali desert. Moreover, this will not be the usual bivouac with fairly comfortable campers, but simple tents and sleeping bags. The facilities will also be as good as possible.

On the one hand, spending the night under the stars between the dunes is quite romantic, on the other hand, something tells us that the racers and their crews will not have time for romance.

There is one more unusual condition: at this time it is forbidden to use means of communication and the participants will not know in which position they are in relation to each other. In addition, navigation along the route of the 48-hour stage will be extremely difficult; searching for checkpoints in the middle of the desert won’t be easy.

But that’s not all: where motorcycle racers who start first normally leave the tracks where everyone who follows is guided, there is now a separate route for participants in the two-wheeler class. In general, no one will think it’s enough.