Lategan dominates to extend lead as Al-Attiyah struggles

Henk Lategan extended his lead at the top of the overall Dakar Rally standings with a dominant performance on Stage 8.

The factory Toyota driver finished the test in 4h49m54s, though was docked two minutes after finishing for a speed violation, to finish 1m47s ahead of team-mate Guy Botterill and 4m4s ahead of Century driver Mathieu Serradori.

Stage 7 winner Lucas Moraes opened the track in the morning but the Toyota driver struggled without the tracks made by bikes as the route again deviated between classes, losing more than two and a half minutes early on.

Guillaume de Mevis had been at the head of proceedings early on before mechanical troubles hit his Mini, leaving Lategan and Botterill to battle it out in first and second.

At the 200km mark, Nasser Al-Attiyah was almost six minutes down on the benchmark having started the day fourth on the road and the Dacia Sandrider would lose even more time at the next checkpoint, with only Ford’s Mattias Ekstrom behind in terms of his rivals for victory.

While Lategan kept an advantage of over half a minute to Botterill at the 294km checkpoint, with Brian Baragwanath (Century) and Martin Prokop (Orlen Jipocar Ford) occupying the other top-four positions, Al-Attiyah continued to struggle, unable to cut time.

It was a lead that Lategan would never lose, even with his penalty for speeding during a control zone. Botterill was last of the stage leaders to cross the finish line, bumping Serradori down on the podium.

Baragwanath was fourth ahead of Ford’s Nani Roma and Yazeed Al-Rajhi (Overdrive Toyota) – the Saudi Arabian losing 5m20s to Lategan in the quest for glory but taking around seven minutes out of Al-Attiyah, who was penalised a minute, and over 10 minutes out of Ekstrom to cement his place as the South African’s nearest challenger.

Prokop, Joao Ferreira, Rokas Baciuska and Seth Quintero rounded out the top 10, with Al-Attiyah 11th and Ekstrom 18th.

The result means Lategan takes a 5m41s gap over Al-Rajhi into Stage 9, which will see the drivers face 357km of timed stages from Riyadh to Haradh.

Ekstrom is third in the standings, 28m55s behind, with Al-Attiyah 34m14s down.