Qatar’s Al Attiyah takes Dakar lead on shortened third day, nightmare for Sainz

Qatar’s Al Attiyah takes Dakar lead on shortened third day, nightmare for Sainz

The Third Stage cut short after adverse weather made conditions too treacherous

Doha, Qatar: Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah moved into the lead of the 2023 Dakar Rally for the first time despite dropping more than 20 minutes at Tuesday’s Stage 3 -- shortened after adverse weather made conditions too treacherous.

Heavy rain and low cloud meant that the initially planned 447km stage between Alula and Ha'il had to be called off before the final checkpoint as conditions became too bad for the helicopters to operate.

The ASO, therefore, had no other option but to end the stage some 70km early, leaving GCK Motorsport’s Guerlain Chicherit the fastest driver of the day in his Hunter T1+.

 “The degradation in weather conditions has made it no longer possible for the organizers to guarantee the best safety conditions for the competitors, so the crews in the car and truck categories have been halted at CP3 (after 377 km),” a statement from the ASO read. “The rankings for the day will be established from the times achieved at this point.”

The shortened special saw Al-Atiyah’s arch rival Carlos Sainz Sr faced mechanical problems handing the three-time Qatari rival advantage over his Sainz.

The primarily sandy trek from AlUla to Ha’il had already produced its fair share of drama, with a number of big names suffering significant time losses.

After losing more than an hour during Monday’s second stage, Bahrain Raid Xtreme’s Sébastien Loeb endured another frustrating day, stopping barely 26km into the stage and losing 20 minutes.

Erstwhile rally leader Sainz also hit trouble with an issue with the left-rear of his T1-Ultimate Audi RS Q e-tron E2. He was stranded for over half an hour but got going again, albeit way down the order.

 This left Toyota’s Al-Attiyah in the effective overall lead, but the defending winner was not immune to his own strife. He lost more than 20 minutes to Chicherit but, crucially, only 16 minutes to Overdrive Racing’s Yazeed Al Rajhi, over whom Al-Attiyah maintains a healthy lead in the overall classification.

While Al-Attiyah and navigator Mathieu Baumel were able to limit the damage and emerge from the stage with a huge lead, Sainz and Lucas Cruz tumbled down the order to eighth after their woes.

The problems for the main T1+ and T1U contenders did not, however, take away from the entertaining battle for stage honors between Chicherit and Al-Attiyah’s Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mate Henk Lategan.

Chicherit hit the front after the second waypoint at 95km after early leader Al Rajhi dropped two minutes, with Lategan just 17s adrift before himself moving ahead by the third waypoint at 147km.

Al Rajhi was still in the mix but was now fourth behind the BRX Hunter of Orlando Terranova who kept in touch just 54s behind Lategan. The Toyota driver – alongside navigator and former biker Brett Cummings – began to edge away by the midway point of the stage but Chicherit (starting 28th on the road) hauled himself back into the lead by 45s by the 240km marker.

 

By this point, Sainz was out of contention with his issues, leaving 14-time winner Stéphane Peterhansel as the highest placed Audi in eighth. With Al-Attiyah dropping nine minutes after the fourth waypoint, that gave the likes of Century Factory Racing Team’s Brian Baragwanath the opportunity to move into the top four.

The upgraded 2WD Century CR6 buggy, now fitted with a 2.9-litre bi-turbo Audi RS4 engine, again produced the goods en route to the fifth fastest time behind Peterhansel and ahead of Al Rajhi who lost pace in the second half of the stage.

Chicherit then began to pull away from Lategan and opened up a margin of nearly three minutes before the stage was eventually canned. Terranova ended up third, 4m39s off the pace, while Peterhansel was a distant fourth, exactly eight minutes in arrears.

Al Rajhi finished 30s behind Baragwanath in sixth, ahead of Vadotas Zala who finally enjoyed a somewhat clean stage after a pair of difficult tests so far.

Overdrive Racing’s Lucas Moraes and experienced navigator Timo Gottschalk finished ninth quickest while Pascal Lachaume was 10th fastest in his MD Rallye Sport machine.

It all means that Al-Attiyah holds a lead of 13 minutes from Al Rajhi, with Peterhansel moving up to third place, just over 20 minutes adrift of the top Toyota.

Loeb is 26th in the overall classification, 1h33m49s adrift of Al-Attiyah in the lead.

The bivouac will now stay in Ha’il for the next three days, with two loop stages around the northern city taking place.

 

Stage 3 Result (AlUla– Ha’il)

1 Guerlain Chicherit/Alex Winocq (GCK Motorsport) 3h22m57s

2 Henk Lategan/Brett Cummings (Toyota Gazoo Racing) +3m26s

3 Orlando Terranova/Alex Haro Bravo (Bahrain Raid Xtreme) +5m04s

4 Stéphane Peterhansel/Edouard Boulanger (Team Audi Sport) +7m47s

5 Yazeed Al Rajhi/Dirk von Zitzewitz (Overdrive Racing) +8m31s

6 Brian Baragwanath/Leonard Cremer (Century Factory Racing Team) +10m13s

7 Vaidotas Zala/Paulo Fiuza (Teltonika Racing) +11m06s

8 Kuba Przygónski/Armand Monleon (X-raid Mini JCW) +14m38s

9 Lucas Moraes/Timo Gottschalk (Overdrive Racing) +15m41s

10 Mattias Ekström/Emil Bergkvist (Team Audi Sport) +20m03s

 

Overall Standings:

1 Nasser Al-Attiyah/Mathieu Baumel (Toyota Gazoo Racing) 12h20m33s

2 Al Rajhi/von Zitzewitz (Overdrive Racing) +13m20s

3 Peterhansel/Boulanger (Team Audi Sport) +20m45s

4 Simon Vitse/Frédéric Lefebvre (MD Rally) +24m53s

5 Baragwanath/Cremer (Century Factory Racing Team) +26m16s

6 Mathieu Serradori/Loïc Minaudier (Century Factory Racing Team) +27m19s

7 Giniel de Villiers/Dennis Murphy (Toyota Gazoo Racing) +32m08s

8 Carlos Sainz/Lucas Cruz (Team Audi Sport) +33m11s

9 Moraes/Gottschalk (Overdrive Racing) +33m45s

10 Martin Prokop/Viktor Chytka (Orlen Benzina Team) +35m10s