Lategan dominates to increase lead as Al-Attiyah struggles

Henk Lategan prolonged his lead on the high of the general Dakar Rally standings with a dominant efficiency on Stage 8.

The manufacturing unit Toyota driver completed the take a look at in 4h49m54s, although was docked two minutes after ending for a velocity violation, to complete 1m47s forward of team-mate Man Botterill and 4m4s forward of Century driver Mathieu Serradori.

Stage 7 winner Lucas Moraes opened the monitor within the morning however the Toyota driver struggled with out the tracks made by bikes because the route once more deviated between lessons, shedding greater than two and a half minutes early on.

Guillaume de Mevis had been on the head of proceedings early on earlier than mechanical troubles hit his Mini, leaving Lategan and Botterill to battle it out in first and second.

On the 200km mark, Nasser Al-Attiyah was nearly six minutes down on the benchmark having began the day fourth on the highway and the Dacia Sandrider would lose much more time on the subsequent checkpoint, with solely Ford’s Mattias Ekstrom behind when it comes to his rivals for victory.

Whereas Lategan saved a bonus of over half a minute to Botterill on the 294km checkpoint, with Brian Baragwanath (Century) and Martin Prokop (Orlen Jipocar Ford) occupying the opposite top-four positions, Al-Attiyah continued to wrestle, unable to chop time.

It was a lead that Lategan would by no means lose, even together with his penalty for dashing throughout a management zone. Botterill was the final of the stage leaders to cross the end line, bumping Serradori down on the rostrum.

Baragwanath was fourth forward of Ford’s Nani Roma and Yazeed Al-Rajhi (Overdrive Toyota) – the Saudi Arabian shedding 5m20s to Lategan within the quest for glory however taking round seven minutes out of Al-Attiyah, who was penalised a minute, and over 10 minutes out of Ekstrom to cement his place because the South African’s nearest challenger.

Prokop, Joao Ferreira, Rokas Baciuska and Seth Quintero rounded out the highest 10, with Al-Attiyah eleventh and Ekstrom 18th.

The outcome means Lategan takes a 5m41s hole over Al-Rajhi into Stage 9, which is able to see the drivers face 357km of timed phases from Riyadh to Haradh.

Ekstrom is third within the standings, 28m55s behind, with Al-Attiyah 34m14s down.