The Saudi Jazeed Al Rajhi (Overdrive Racing), leader until this Thursday morning of the Dakar 2024 general classification, abandoned the rally at the beginning of the queen stage of the king of rallies and thus hands the general classification to the fight between the Spanish Carlos Sainz (Audi) and the Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah (Prodrive).
Dakar sources reported that "the car is broken" and that he had to abandon the vehicle after it got stuck in a dune during kilometer 51 of the sixth race, at the beginning of the 48-hour time trial that should be the big stage. of the rally raid.
His team has confirmed that both Al Rajhi and his co-pilot, Timo Gottschalk, are safe and sound despite the accident and have already been evacuated.
After kilometer 51, Sainz would be the virtual leader of the race, since he is currently first in the stage and has 8 minutes and 39 seconds over Al-Attiyah, who opened the track by winning this Wednesday's stage, which gives him He is making it go slower than the other drivers. In fact, right now and with several hours ahead, the Madrid native would be six minutes and eleven seconds ahead of the Qatari, who is the current champion and has two consecutive Touaregs. Although there is still a long day ahead.
Seven different camps to house the pilots, tents and "military-style" food await the runners between this Thursday and this Friday in the most inhospitable part of the Rub al-Khali, the largest sand desert in the world in the that two-wheeled vehicles roll on a different route than four-wheeled vehicles. The first to do so in cars was Al-Attiyah, who won the fifth stage this past Wednesday and was the one who opened the track.
The runners will try to reach the furthest bivouac from the first day, although from 4:00 p.m. they will have to stop at the closest campsite. If they are somewhere between 'B' and 'C', for example, they will have to go to the furthest one and that time will still count towards the classification.
Upon arrival at the camp, a basic tent, a mat, two meals - a dinner and a breakfast - "military style" and six liters of water will await them, since, although it is winter in Saudi Arabia, the desert is the desert and this past Wednesday temperatures of 27 degrees were reached in Shubaytah, where the last bivouac of the week for mechanics, pilots and journalists was installed.
The runners will have to face another great risk: they will sleep from Thursday to Friday without knowing their position in the first part of the stage, because they will not be able to connect their cell phones to the internet, even though coverage in the middle of the desert is non-existent.
One of the great concerns of the teams, and especially of the big brands, is that of gasoline. A car in the Ultimate category can consume more than 80 and even 85 liters per 100 kilometers, a figure that makes it clear how many liters of fuel the cars must be filled with.
Thus, despite the fact that there will be refueling points distributed along the route, unrest reigned in the briefing prior to the stage, in which the big brands even discussed ways to shorten the stage.
This is what happened to Pablo Quintanilla. The winner of yesterday's motorcycle stage ran out of gas at kilometer 184, 12 kilometers from the next refueling point and lost more than an hour waiting for help until he could continue.
