The queen stage of the Dakar 2024 left big changes in both general classifications, but above all a protagonist, the Spanish Carlos Sainz (Audi), who leads the cars by 20 minutes over the second and who got even with the Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah (Prodrive) , who said goodbye to his chances after losing 2 hours and 45 minutes.
The sixth stage, a 48-hour time trial through the largest sand desert in the world, fulfilled its promises and was a real challenge for great favorites such as Al-Attiyah, the Spanish Joan Barreda (Hero), who had to retire due to a problem mechanic, or the Chilean Pablo Quintanilla (Honda), who ran out of gas this Thursday and waited an hour for a driver to give him enough to reach the refueling point.
The victories in this stage went to the Frenchman Sébastien Loeb (Prodrive), one of the main rivals that Sainz faces, and the Frenchman Adrien van Beveren (Honda) on motorcycles, which allows the Frenchman to continue in the fight for a classification in which up to four drivers are in less than nine minutes.
In cars, however, Sainz arrives at the rest day of the rally raid with 20 minutes and 21 seconds over Ekström and with 29 minutes and 31 seconds over Loeb, who won his twenty-fifth stage of the Dakar this Friday.
The first big 'victim' of the stage was the one who until that moment was the leader of the race, the Saudi Jazeed Al Rajhi (Overdrive Racing), who at kilometer 51 of the sixth race overturned his vehicle when he collided with some rock and was already could not continue. He thus handed the overall title to Sainz and Al-Attiyah, although it would not be of much use to the Qatari.
The Saudi driver arrived in the Empty Quarter desert with options after a good first week in which he had been much more consistent than Al-Attiyah and a little more than Sainz, but he rolled several times and couldn't do anything to save the car: "After kilometer 51, everything was going well on a completely flat 'chott', we were going at full speed and I collided with something, we rolled several times and the car was damaged," he commented.
Al-Attiyah was not very good on Thursday, leaving up to 24 minutes at the end of the day, after having to open the track in the desert for having won the previous day.
But if he had problems on Thursday, the situation got even worse this Friday for Al-Attiyah, who has two consecutive Dakars and was looking for another title. The Qatari was stopped for more than two hours fixing his vehicle, which was stranded in the middle of the desert due to a mechanical problem, which made him forget about being able to fight for the general classification.
The Qatari is now at the head of the race at two hours and 45 minutes, somewhat less, however, than the Frenchman Stéphane Peterhansel (Audi), who after a mechanical problem on Thursday finished the stage at three hours and one minute and did not run the Same fate as his teammates, Sainz and Ekström.
The Polish Erik Goczal (Energylandia Rally Team), who has the Catalan Óscar Mena as co-driver in his light prototype, was the big surprise of this sixth stage, in which he not only stretched his lead in the general classification of light prototypes (SSV) , but finished fifth in the car category.
The very young Pole, barely 19 years old, thus demonstrates that he is already prepared for much greater heights than the SSV and is, in fact, ninth in the general classification of four-seater vehicles, 1 hour, 52 minutes and 30 seconds behind Sainz. .
At that same distance, although it may seem incredible after six stages, is the Frenchman Mathieu Serradori (Century Racing), who is eighth in the table and who beats the Catalan Laia Sanz by just over an hour, at 2 hours, 56 minutes and 5 seconds from Sainz.
The Catalan is second in her category, the T1.2 in which cars with only two main wheels compete, after another meritorious stage, while another Catalan, Nani Roma, remains thirteenth overall in the year of his return to competition. after bladder cancer and assured at the end of the day that this had "been, without a doubt, the most difficult stage" since the Dakar was held in Saudi Arabia.
Thus, the rest day leaves some winners, like Sainz, but above all big losers, like Al-Attiyah or Quintanilla, who must digest that they will not be able to fight for the general classification next week.
