Dakar: Sebastien Loeb won another stage

After a rest day on Sunday, the participants of the Dakar rally raid continued to fight, and Sébastien Loeb reached the finish line in Al-Duwadimi as the fastest – this is already his third stage victory this year.

“We got through the stage well, without making any serious mistakes,” said the nine-time world rally champion. – But there were serious problems with the navigation, especially because we were the first to reach the stage. We had to clear the way, although sometimes that’s even better, because we were completely focused on our work, and I tried to go fast, but at the same time be very careful in areas that were difficult to navigate. And in the end it all worked out for all of us.”

At the finish of the 7th stage, Loeb had a lead of more than seven minutes over Brazilian Toyota driver Lucas Moraes, with Nasser Al-Attiyah recording the third fastest time. Nominally, he is Sebastien’s teammate in the Prodrive team, although in fact he simply drives the same off-road Prodrive Hunter prototype and competes for his own Nasser Racing team.

Team Audi Sport driver Carlos Sainz remains in the lead in the overall standings, but Loeb moved up to second and Moraes to third.

12th place in the overall ranking is occupied by the Russian team of Denis Krotov and Konstantin Zhiltsov – for example, today they closed the top ten, which is quite good.

In the motorcycle class, Jose Ignacio Cornejo Florimo, a Chilean rider from the Honda factory team, finished first. He had a lead of more than three minutes over the Argentinian Luciano Benavidez, who competes on equipment from the Swedish brand Husqvarna. Luciano is the younger brother of Kevin Benavidez, two-time Dakar winner, and he obviously wants to maintain the family tradition and also win the rally stage, but is still in 8th place after seven stages.

His brother is in 5th place, behind the leader, the most experienced American Ricky Brabec, almost 25 minutes ahead. In second place in the two-wheeler class is Ross Branch, a racer from Botswana who has already won more than one stage this year, and his lead over Brabec is… one second.

In the ATV category, Argentinian Manuel Andujar finished first, but was immediately given a 15-minute penalty for missing one of the navigation checkpoints. Therefore, the stage victory went to Alexandre Giraud, reducing the lead over Andujar to 6 minutes in the general classification. 20 seconds, which isn’t much by Dakar standards, especially as there are still five stages ahead.

Unfortunately, Marcelo Medeiros dropped out of the race: the Brazilian rider had an accident at 165 km of the seventh stage and suffered a chest injury. The injury is not particularly serious, but he will not be able to continue fighting. For him, this is the third meeting in the six Dakars in which he participated.

Among racers from the Challenger class, i.e. light SUVs, the stage was won by the American duo Mitchell Guthrie and Kellon Welch. They compete for the Taurus Factory Team – this is the factory team of the Dutch manufacturer of rally raid equipment – ​​and confidently lead the way in this category. But second place after seven stages is taken by the famous Spanish racer Cristina Gutierrez, which in itself commands respect.

Maybe someone is wondering where the Polish teams of Erik Gochal and his uncle Michal, who won most of the previous stages, have gone. This morning it was announced that both had been disqualified. The FIA’s technical inspection, which took place on the rest day, found that their cars did not meet the regulations, and specifically found that the clutch on them was made of carbon fiber, which is prohibited by the rules. Therefore, teams 302 and 310 were not allowed to start the 7th stage.

In the T4 (all-terrain vehicles) category, the Portuguese Joao Ferreira set the best time, but the Polaris RZR Pro R of the Sebastien Loeb Racing team raced to the finish almost simultaneously with him. Xavier de Soltre lost only 35 seconds to the winner and he is the one who leads the class, in which there are apparently also fewer and fewer teams left and the statistics of retirements only grow every day.

In the truck class, Martin Masik’s Czech team is again in the lead, for whom this is already the fourth stage victory and he is also leader in the general classification.

Early Monday morning the 8th stage of the rally raid starts, the total length is 678 km, of which 458 km are high-speed sections. Organizers report that no particular difficulties are expected at this stage, but more attention will be required from participants as the track is largely rocky and to avoid punctures you will need to drive quickly but carefully.