Al-Rajhi wins 48h test, Lategan takes lead and Sainz loses time

Yazeed Al-Rajhi came out on top in the 48-hour chrono stage at the Dakar Rally as Henk Lategan took the overall lead.

Toyota privateer Al-Rajhi finished with a time of 10h32m54s, 4m29s up on Dacia’s Nasser Al-Attiyah after the duo pulled clear on the first day of the mammoth stage.

Factory Toyota driver Lategan took over from Seth Quintero at the top of the overall rankings after finishing 6m16s down on the stage winner.

Day one of the stage saw some of the rally protagonists hit trouble, with Carlos Sainz rolling his Ford Raptor and Sebastien Loeb suffering from fan problems, allowing Al-Rajhi and Al-Attiyah to stretch clear.

Competitors were tasked with completing as much of the route as possible during the first day of the stage, with a cutoff of 5pm local time splitting the stage into two parts.

After camping at their ending points overnight, the leading duo had 341km left to travel to complete the stage on day two, with Mattias Ekstrom hanging on to a top-three place. While Al-Rajhi gained two minutes over Al-Attiyah from the day’s starting gaps at the 782km mark, Spaniards Nani Roma and Cristina Gutierrez hit trouble, the latter forced to retire to the bivouac and end her chances of victory. She will be able to rejoin the rally to support the other Dacia drivers.

Reigning W2RC champion Al-Attiyah was able to cut the gap to Al-Rajhi back to just over a minute with barely 100km left in the stage – and at one point before that had slashed the advantage to just 26 seconds – but would lose out in the closing stages to finish over four minutes back. Lategan took the rally lead with his third-place finish on the stage, though that became second when bonuses were applied.

Juan Cruz Yacopini was fourth, 6m46s down on the stage-winning time but over three minutes up on fifth-placed Mathieu Serradori. Rokas Baciuska couldn’t hold his strong fourth-position standing from early in the day and finished sixth ahead of Loeb, who was able to consolidate his rally position despite his issues.

Ekstrom lost time on day two of the Chrono to slip to eighth, while Toby Price was ninth after minor issues of his own. Mitch Guthrie Jr completed the top 10 for the stage, while navigation issues late on saw Sainz drop over an hour in rally time in total, finishing the stage in 23rd.

#201 Overdrive Racing Toyota: Yazeed Al Rajhi, Timo Gottschalk

Photo by: A.S.O.

Lategan leads the rally by 4m45s over Al-Rajhi, with Al-Attiyah almost seven minutes further back in third, with Price fourth, Ekstrom fifth and Loeb sixth, all within 20 minutes of the overall lead.

The next challenge for the competitors will be the third special stage, with 495km of timed running and 352km of untimed travel from the Bisha bivouac to Al Henakiyah.