Nine-time WRC world champion Sebastian Leb is continuing his attempt to win his first Dakar rally this year, if the odds aren’t, by driving the Prodrive buggy as hard as possible and hoping for mechanical problems for Nasser Al Attiyah Race days keep a safe distance at the top.

Such an accident for the driver from Qatar, the factory Toyota, occurred today in the 8th special stage of the race from Dowadimi to Dowashir. Al Attiyah, a three-time winner of the race, initially had a flare-up but then a problem with the Hilux T1 + rear differential overheating, which then broke and only the front wheels moved for him on very demanding terrain.

However, he eventually kept his difference at the top in security level, at 38 minutes and while there are still four specials left for the end of Jeddah. “After that I was scared all the time. “said Al Atiya. “But in the end I wasn’t interested, I tried to push a little, but it wasn’t easy, just with the front wheels.

I’m very lucky to be here and we only lost seven minutes to Seb. This is a new differential, we only added it yesterday so something probably went wrong. The seven minutes that we lost were nothing, because from the start we only drove in 3rd and 4th gear and were very slow in the dunes. “I’m glad we finished without wasting too much time.”, closed.

Leb scored the third year of the day, three minutes behind the winner of today’s 395 km specialty, Matthias Ekstrom. The Swede, two-time German DTM champion, was faster than Stefan Petransel and Carlos Sainth, and all three finished in the top four with the three electric Audi RS Q e-trons. It was the first 1-2 of the German company in a Dakar special.

Leb also had difficulties today, mainly because he paved the way for yesterday’s first year. “It wasn’t easy, we pushed a lot from start to finish because we cleared the way. Our goal was to stay ahead and not let Nasser follow us. We had a mess, we quickly changed bikes and so on. But then we saw that we had lost the other spare tire and that I had to drive more carefully. But she was a good specialist, our navigation was fine and we didn’t make any mistakes. “said the French.

On the motorcycles, Sam Sunderland from GasGas made the big counterattack after the navigation problems on Sunday (9/1) and won today’s special stage, taking the lead of the race just under 5 minutes behind Matthias Walkner from KTM and Adrien van Beveren from Yamaha.

Van Beveren lost 10:21 minutes to Sunderland today, had difficulty orienting himself from second place, and as Walkner was 4:11 slower than the GasGas driver, Sunderland made up yesterday’s five-minute gap and was again responsible.

The next rider in the UK today was Honda’s Pablo Quintanilla, but the Chilean got no closer than three minutes either. However, the CRF450 rally driver reached Van Beveren in 47 seconds and is now well on his way to winning the fight.

His counterpart, Joan Barreda Bort, climbed to fifth place with a shoulder injury from the first week – but the Spaniard is 14:38 minutes ahead of Sunderland. On the other hand, last year’s winner Kevin Benavides from KTM lost contact with the leaders, as did the 15 minutes he lost in the 8th special stage today.

Dakar Rally 2022 – ED8

cars

1. Al Atiya (Toyota) 27:45:52

2. Leb (BRX) +37: 58

3. Al Razi (Toyota) +53: 13

4. Przigonski (Mini) +1: 28: 06

5. Teranova (BRX) +1: 31: 39

motorcycles

1. Sunderland (GasGas) 27:38:42

2nd Walkner (KTM) +03: 45

3. Van Beveren (Yamaha) +04: 43

4. Quintania (Honda) + 05:30

5. Bort hair clip (Honda) +14: 38