Multiple champion Al-Attiyah wins fifth stage of Dakar rally

Defending champion Nasser al-Attiyah ignored strategic slowdowns and won the fifth stage of the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday taking the Qatari driver into second place behind home favourite Yazeed Al-Rajhi.

The stage victory was the first this year for five-times Dakar winner Al-Attiyah, whose Prodrive Hunter finished 1 min 51 sec ahead of French Toyota driver Guerlain Chicherit.

Al Rajhi was fourth-fastest over the sand dunes on the 118km stage from Al-Hofuf to Shubaytah that saw several top contenders ease off to gain a later start on Thursday so as to follow the tracks left by the leading vehicles.

The Saudi retained the overall lead, 9 min 3 sec clear of Al-Attiyah, with Audi’s Carlos Sainz dropping to third.

“There was no strategy on my part. I wanted to win the stage no matter what they have in store for us tomorrow,” said Al-Attiyah.

He has now won Dakar stages with seven different constructors over the course of his career, Wednesday being the Qatari’s first in a Prodrive Hunter.

Rival and nine-times world rally champion Sebastien Loeb, Tuesday’s winner, lost more than 21 minutes to Al Attiyah, including a 15-minute penalty for deliberately missing a waypoint.

The Frenchman dropped to ninth overall from third, 43 minutes off the lead.

“Nasser and I are following different strategies. He wants to start early and feels confident. I wouldn’t have done that. We’re not equally knowledgeable about the desert, he’s in his element,” said Loeb. “I opted for following the tracks [on Thursday]. That’s my choice. We lost big time today in the hope of winning big time tomorrow.”

The 48-hour Chrono Stage will see contenders race through the kingdom’s Empty Quarter with marathon-stage restrictions and the motorbikes taking a different route.

“We stopped for a while. I don’t know whether it was the right strategy, we’ll see in two days, but we didn’t want to be at the front,” said Sainz.

The top SA team is Giniel de Villiers and Dennis Murphy in the Gazoo Racing Toyota Hilux. They arein 11th overall after finishing seventh in Thursday’s stage.

In the motorcycle category, Botswanan Ross Branch returned to the top in a stage won by Chilean Pablo Quintanilla on a Honda. Branch leads Chile’s Jose Ignacio Cornejo by 1 min 14 sec with American Ricky Brabec in third place.