Heart attack day for Carlos Sainz (Audi). After three punctures and being just over 4 minutes behind Sébastien Loeb (Prodrive), the Spanish driver has managed to recover seven of the sixteen minutes that he had lost over the Frenchman. Thus, Sainz saves his first place overall, remaining 13 minutes and 22 seconds behind Loeb.
The Madrid native was not the only driver with technical problems, since Loeb also had to stop for about five minutes, presumably due to a puncture. A circumstance that Sainz has taken advantage of to gain some time, once he recovered from his stops to change tires that have forced him to stop for more than 18 minutes.
"It has been a stage of many stones, much more than we expected. We have seen that we have overtaken Loeb and I was going slowly, without taking any type of risk, and even so we have punctured three times," commented Sainz.
The Frenchman Stéphane Peterhansel (Audi) and the Swede Mattias Ekström (Audi), Sainz's teammates, have played a decisive role in this stage. Thanks to them, the Spanish driver has obtained spare wheels as quickly as possible. On the contrary, Loeb has not had the support of his teammate and current Dakar champion Nasser Al-Attiyah, who retired from the competition permanently.
"It's been a tough day. We had a problem with the jack and we had to take the car up onto the rocks to change the two tires we punctured at the back. I lost 15 minutes with it. It's a bit frustrating, of course, but the stages are hard and Carlos has also lost time," said the Frenchman.
In motorcycles, the Hondas took the first three places in the stage. In first place, the American Ricky Brabec (Honda) has managed to gain minutes on Ross Branch (Hero) and remains the leader of the general standings by putting himself 10 minutes and 54 seconds ahead of the Botswana driver.
The Hero rider, who lost steam in the second half of the stage, reached the finish line in seventh position. Consequently, Branch is finally 10 minutes and 54 seconds behind Brabec. A time that jeopardizes his second place overall, since both the Frenchman Adrien van Beveren (Honda) and Nacho Cornejo (Honda) are hot on his heels.
The Frenchman has achieved third place in the stage, so he is very close to the second step on the podium, which is less than a minute away. This is also the case of the other Honda, that of Cornejo, who is approaching the podium by being two minutes and two seconds behind van Beveren and 2 minutes and 56 seconds behind Bravec.
