SANTIAGO, Chile — Nasser Al-Attiyah cut Stephane Peterhansel’s lead to virtually nothing in the Dakar Rally with a sixth-stage win that was spoiled by the withdrawal of his teammate Carlos Sainz on Thursday, according to usatoday.com.
Al-Attiyah, the 2011 champion from Qatar who had to withdraw last year, won his third stage, a 438-kilometer timed special that was cut in two to somewhat ease the rugged challenge of racing for four hours into the Atacama Desert.
Al-Attiyah’s buggy led the first Chilean stage all the way from Arica on the coast inland to Calama, beating defending champion Peterhansel in his Mini by more than eight minutes to cut the Frenchman’s overall lead to 1 minute, 18 seconds.
“I’m quite happy with everything,” Al-Attiyah said. “We just try to keep going like this and we try to keep close to Peter because maybe tomorrow the stage might not be for us, but OK, if we lose, we lose just a few minutes.”
Theirs has become a two-car race as rivals have struggled.
Giniel de Villiers, third overall at 43 minutes behind, got stuck in his Toyota for 10 minutes after 70 kilometers, the same area where Nani Roma’s Mini was bogged down for 30 minutes.
Roma dropped to seventh and 90 minutes down. The only other driver within an hour of Peterhansel was Russian teammate Leonid Novitskiy at 45 minutes.
Meanwhile, Francesco Lopez also won his third stage of the motorbike race, and his fifth ever in his native Chile, to rise to a close fourth behind the leading French trio of Olivier Pain, Cyril Despres and David Casteu.
