SHAYBAH, Saudi Arabia – Nasser Al-Attiyah came out of the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia with a huge one-and-a-half hour lead in the final weekend of the season. Dakar . protest.
Sebastien Loeb won a rare fifth straight leg on Friday and improved to second overall. But he was 1 hour 27 minutes behind Al-Attiyah.
Brazil’s Lucas Moraes, driving his first Dakar, was a minute behind in third with two legs to the finish line on Sunday in Dammam.
Al-Attiyah said: “If we finish in the top 5 every day, that’s okay for me, we have a big enough lead.
The title holder continued to not want to overrun, even though he finished third in stage 12, the second part of a special marathon back to Shaybah from the Oman border. After 185 km, Al-Attiyah conceded just over three minutes to Loeb.
Loeb became the second driver in the elite car category to win five consecutive races, after Ari Vatanen in 1989. Mattias Ekstrom finished second, more than three minutes.
“It was a perfect day; no mistakes, no stagnation, no turning points,” said Loeb. We had a big comeback I didn’t think we could climb to second I thought we could take fifth but three great drivers like Carlos (Sainz) ), Stéphane (Peterhansel) and Yazeed (Al Rajhi) were eliminated from the race, so from then on, I was aiming for second place.”
Two-time champion Toby Price has timed his motorcycle to perfection.
He was third on stage behind Nacho Cornejo, who beat Daniel Sanders home in 49 seconds.
Price, also thanks to extra lead time, replaced Skyler Howes at the top of the overall leaderboard, taking a 28-second lead.
Outside of the three legs, Price was in the top three overall. His Dakar wins in 2016 and 2019 were both in South America.
“Trying to have a strategy for the race at this point is completely out of luck,” says Price. “I just need to sit on two wheels and stay healthy. Tomorrow I’ll try and push hard… but again, you don’t want to push too crazy and risk injury or being injured. out of the race completely close to this.”
Howes, aiming for his first Dakar title, regretted the few seconds he had to pause to pack the tracking gear.
“We’re fighting for every second and any amount of time you spend, which means three extra seconds to put a tracker in your pocket, is just extra time and seconds,” he said. It’s all worth it,” he said. “It’s creepy to get this close after so many races, but it’s fun.”
Kevin Benavides is third, nearly three minutes behind.
