01/09/26 02:52:00
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01/09 14:49 CST Al-Attiyah regains Dakar Rally lead and Sanders' penalty gives
Brabec motorbike win
Al-Attiyah regains Dakar Rally lead and Sanders' penalty gives Brabec motorbike
win
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) --- Nasser Al-Attiyah regained the lead of the Dakar
Rally after blasting the first all-sand stage of the race on Friday.
Five-time champion Al-Attiyah dominated the second half of the 331-kilometer
stage between Hail and Riyadh, increasing his lead from nine seconds to nearly
three minutes at the finish over teammate Sbastien Loeb for the first Dacia
1-2 in Dakar history.
"The car is working very, very well, I'm really happy," Al-Attiyah said.
He has won a stage in an unprecedented 19 consecutive Dakars. It was his 49th
career stage win, just one behind the record shared by Ari Vatanen and Stphane
Peterhansel.
Taking stage six lifted Al-Attiyah back atop the general rankings, his
four-minute deficit to Toyota's Henk Lategan overturned into a six-minute lead.
For the first time since the 2019 Dakar, Ford's Nani Roma was in the overall
podium places at third, nine minutes off the pace with four-time champion
Carlos Sainz on his tail.
Roma quickly caught up to stage five winner Mitch Guthrie and the teammates
opened the way together. Toyota's Seth Quintero was Al-Attiyah's closest
challenger for much of the day until the last 80 kilometers when he was
overtaken by Loeb, the nine-time world rally champion trying to win his first
Dakar at his 10th attempt.
Quintero, the stage two winner, was 21 seconds behind Loeb in third.
Al-Attiyah's win by 2:58 was the biggest margin of the first week going into
the only rest day.
Sanders goes too fast
A speeding penalty cost defending motorbike champion Daniel Sanders the stage
win and a bigger lead overall.
Sanders knew he made a mistake early on --- he was clocked doing 98 kph in a 50
kph zone --- and pushed his KTM harder than usual. He caught teammate Luciano
Benavides soon after the neutralized zone and together they opened the way and
gobbled up the time bonuses.
After about 30 kilometers, Sanders was opening the trail on his own and led his
closest rival, 2024 champion Ricky Brabec, by more than five minutes. Sanders
eventually finished just under five minutes ahead of Brabec.
But a six-minute penalty for the speeding gave Brabec his 12th career stage win
and first of the week by just over a minute over Honda teammate Tosha Schareina
and dropped Sanders to third, three seconds further back.
Sanders held on to the overall lead but it was cut to 45 seconds over Brabec,
10:15 over Benavides and 11:56 over Schareina.
"I'm not happy with the first week. I should have done a lot better," Sanders
said. "Just silly mistakes. We should have a bigger lead in the overall. So
many things change every day and you just got to keep pushing to the limit."
Brabec said: "My only goal is to catch Daniel on the day after the rest day and
try to take some bonus time. That's how the rally works now, you have to open
to win."
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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
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