Dakar Stage 9: Loeb beats Sainz Sr as Rally finish nears

Sebastien Loeb has won Stage 9 of the Dakar Rally, but his gains on Carlos Sainz were limited by the fact that the Frenchman blew Stage 8.

A navigational error had seen Loeb’s deficit increase to 24:27s on Stage 8, but he chipped that back to 20:33s with his latest victory on what was a mostly sandy, 417km special between Ha’il and AlUla.

Still, with three stages to go, the odds are well in favor of the Spaniard in one of the three Team Audi Sport entries.

Related Article: Sainz Sr. takes overall lead

Mattias Ekstrom and Stephane Peterhansel, in the other Audis let Sainz pass them to help him should he encounter any problems.

For the second Dakar day in a row, Nasser Al-Attiyah had to exit the special due to mechanical problems and was officially classified 157th in the Cars, meaning he will start far down the road order on Stage 10. We bet he now regrets leaving Toyota.

Loeb said, “We had two punctures in the middle of the stage, so at the end I had to be a bit careful not to have a third one.”

Sainz remarked, “I’m happy with the stage, keeping in mind that I opened quite a lot.

“At the end it was very stressful inside the car when the navigation was very difficult.

“We rode as three cars together today and that was good. I knew I had some support from behind.”

Third place on the day went to Century Racing Factory Team’s Mathieu Serradori, 29 seconds behind Sainz and 4m43s behind Loeb, with Overdrive Racing’s Guillaume De Mevius fourth in a Toyota Hilux.

Dakar Bikes

American Ricky Brabec has tightened his grip on the Dakar Bikes category after finishing second in Stage 9 to fellow Honda rider Adrien Van Beveren.

Brabec is now 7m09s ahead in the general classification, having started the day just 42 seconds ahead of Hero Motosports’ Ross Branch.

Results Top-10 Overall

Dakar Cars

Dakar Bikes