Stephane Peterhansel won Friday’s sixth stage of the Dakar Rally to take the lead of the event from Peugeot teammate Sebastian Loeb.It was Peterhansel’s second win of the rally, keeping Peugeot’s perfect record of wins in proper stages so far this year.
Today’s stage – kicking off in Uyuni, Bolivia and returning to the starting point – featured the longest special so far in the rally, with a total of 542km timed, plus 180km of connection.
The stage was extremely close right from the start, with Peterhansel going fastest at the first control point by just four seconds and the top eight cars covered by less than a minute.
At the second control point, the Frenchman managed to keep his slim advantage over Loeb – four seconds slower – and Sainz, the Spaniard only 22 seconds behind.
Peterhansel increased his lead at CP4, making it grow to over a minute over Sainz, as Loeb lost nearly four minutes to his compatriot and was nearly caught by Sainz on the road.
Loeb lost further time near the end, and reached the finish over eight minutes behind Peterhansel, losing the overall lead in the process.
At the finish, the 11-time Dakar winner took victory with a time of 5h01m07s, beating Sainz by just 17 seconds. Toyota’s Yazeed Al-Rajhi wound up third after a strong day, 7m19s adrift.
With his victory, Peterhansel leads the event by 27 seconds from Loeb, with Sainz in third, 5m55s behind.
Reigning champion Nasser Al-Attiyah was unable to match the pace of the Peugeots once again, finishing the day in fifth, nearly nine minutes slower than Peterhansel in the quickest Mini.
2014 winner Nani Roma was sixth in another Mini, the Spaniard finishing ahead of Argentine Orlando Terranova and ex-WRC star Mikko Hirvonen, both driving Minis.
Toyota’s Giniel de Villiers and Erik van Loon in the Mini rounded out the top 10.
Dakar Bikes, Stage 6: Price edges closer, disaster for Barreda
Toby Price closed in on Dakar Rally leader Paulo Goncalves with his third stage win of the event, as Joan Barreda dropped out of contention with engine trouble.
Factory KTM rider Price came out on top in the longest stage of the event yet, a 542km loop starting and ending in Uyuni, Bolivia, as the Aussie recorded his second win in succession and his third of the rally so far.
Price had trailed Honda rider Goncalves by almost two minutes at the fourth waypoint, but gradually clawed back the deficit to establish a small lead at the eighth waypoint.
He then gradually eked out a winning margin of 1m05s during the remainder of the stage, with his KTM teammate Matthias Walkner edging Goncalves for second by just seven seconds.
The result is that Goncalves’ lead has been reduced to a mere 35 seconds, with Walkner moving up from fifth to third, 2m50s adrift of the lead.
Erstwhile rally leader Stefan Svitko (KTM) and Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) completed the top five for the stage, the Slovakian slipping to fourth overall ahead of Pablo Quintanilla (Husqvarna) and Rodrigues.
Kevin Benavides (Honda) dropped to seventh after giving away significant time in the final part of the stage, ahead of Thursday’s runner-up Antoine Meo (KTM), who was penalised five minutes for losing his clocking-in card, and factory Sherco duo Alain Duclos and Joan Pedrero.
Big names out
Friday’s stage claimed a number of high-profile victims, including Barreda, who had been running third overall at the start of the stage, having had two stage wins taken away with speeding penalties.
The Honda rider was left stranded by a broken engine after the fourth waypoint, and was forced to wait for the arrival of team water-carrier Paolo Ceci to assist him.
Barreda got going again, only to then stop again after the fifth waypoint – after which he was given a tow by Ceci. As of the time of writing, he has yet to reach the finish.
Husqvarna factory rider Ruben Faria, who had been running eighth overall, was meanwhile forced to withdraw from the Dakar altogether after breaking his wrist in a fall.
Ivan Jakes (KTM), who was 11th at the beginning of the day, has also pulled out after injuring his knee during Thursday’s stage.
Dakar Quads, Stage 6: Patronelli brothers take over out front
Brothers Alejandro and Marcos Patronelli took control of the 2016 Dakar Rally’s quad category after Stage 6, overcoming sizable deficits to move to first and second respectively in the overall standings.
Alejandro started the day six minutes off Sergey Karyakin, who had been made rally leader after adjustments to Stage 4 results – while Marcos was a full 15 minutes behind the Russian.
However, over the the 542km stage, the rally’s longest yet, the Patronellis overhauled Karyakin, with Marcos topping the stage comfortably to move within three minutes of Alejandro in the general classification.
Brian Baragwanath was best of the rest behind the brothers on Friday, but is more than an hour adrift overall, having lost time on Stage 4 and then incurring a hefty penalty.
The all-Yamaha top five was completed by Karyakin, who is now 5m39s behind the leader, and Jeremias Gonzalez, while Stage 5 winner Alexis Hernandez had a quiet run, losing almost half an hour to Marcos Patronelli.
2014 champion Ignacio Casale, who had dominated the rally until suffering costly engine issues on Thursday, was among the leaders early on in Stage 6, before crashing with less than 200 kilometers to go.
The Chilean ended up breaking his collarbone and had to be airlifted to hospital by helicopter.
More reports of today’s stage to follow tomorrow.
Source: Story and photo’s: motorsport.com