The nine-time rally world champion Leb remained unbeaten with the buggy of the Bahrain Raid Xtreme – prepared by Prodrive – on the 338 km of the 2nd Special Dakar Rally 2022 from Hale to Al Artavia.

At each time control point, he steadily increased his difference and thus paid 3:28 minutes faster for the goal than the factory Toyota Nassel Al Attiya, and so the Frenchman – who won the Racing Special for the first time since 2019 – reduced the difference to the champion, driver Qatar, at 9:16 minutes.

Today’s test to Al Artavia was planned as a marathon along with tomorrow’s 255 km, which means that tonight’s teams are not allowed to intervene outside. Whatever repairs were needed, the participants had to do it themselves.

However, heavy rain on Sunday changed the organizers’ plans and thus the location of today’s camp – as the original from Al Artavia was flooded – and consequently the service was approved by the teams.

6 and 8 minutes behind Leb, with the third and fourth class of the day, followed by Carlos Sainth and Stefan Petrancell. The Spaniard and French countered Audi after yesterday’s disastrous day – when Sainth spent more than two hours looking for a time control point and Petrancell lost nearly six hours by destroying the rear axle and suspension of the Audi RS electric Q e-tron.

The German car has thus shown – on its debut in the Dakar – that it has the speed right from the start and, it seems, the reliability it has so far. But Audi has no hope of winning, as Sainth is 33rd, 2 hours and 24 minutes away, while Petrancell, with the penalty of 16 minutes for not finishing yesterday’s special, is now 68th, 23:45 hours behind is.

Lucio Alvarez, also from Overdrive Toyota, climbed to third place but is more than 40 minutes away from Champion Al Attiya. Toyota Gazoo Racing’s latest counterpart and former Dakar winner with VW, Ziniel de Viger, climbed to 4th place overall and a half-minute away from Alvarez today at the age of 8.

On the motorcycles, Juan Barreda Bort was the one to make year one today in the Honda CRF 450 rally – but it was GasGas’ Sam Sunderland who finished right behind him who climbed to the top of the overall standings. Yesterday’s champion Daniel Saunders, also from GasGas, lost too much time in preparation and then with a navigation error. It was only 28th, 35 minutes away.

Yamaha factory Adrien van Beveren climbed to second place in the overall standings, despite losing 11 minutes to Spanish veteran Barreda Bort in the eighth year of the day – just 2:51 minutes behind the 2017 Sunderland winner.

After the 10-minute penalty against Saunders, which caused him to drop from third to seventh place in the overall standings, behind Sunderland and Van Beveren, Matthias Walkner’s trio concluded the overall standings with the first KTM. The Austrian remains in the fight for victory, although he was only 14 years old today, and kept the difference to the top at 4 minutes.

After a bad start yesterday with the first year (the 28th victory of the special in Dakar), Bareda Bort just entered the top ten today, 20 minutes behind the top of the motorcycles, while the dream of a good result for the former MotoGP star Danilo Petrucci ended the race today because of mechanical problems with the Tech 3 team’s KTM.

As for the Greek participation, Vangelis Bersis and Fotis Koutsoumpos stayed in 60th place in the Dakar Classic category, as the time gap after yesterday’s flood was so tight that the organizers had to cancel today’s special for this category. The two Greeks took advantage of the fact to repair the instrument that displays the average hourly speeds, resulting in yesterday’s rates.