Even when things got a little choppy, it still seemed as if the wind was in Yazeed Al Rajhi’s sails on the Dakar’s sixth stage.
He began Saturday with a 10 minute and 17 second deficit to rally leader and fellow Toyota Hilux runner Henk Lategan. By the halfway point he’d clawed two and a half minutes back, even with a damaged wheel.
At the mid-stage neutralisation, one of Toyota’s ‘water carriers’ came to the rescue: stage three winner Saood Variawa donated one of his spares to Al Rajhi, who set off on his way and began mercilessly scything his way further into Lategan’s lead.
In the final 30 kilometres, it seemed there may be a sudden reprieve: Al Rajhi lost two and a half minutes in the dunes. Before that, Lategan’s lead was set to be cut to under five minutes. That went up to 7m16s by the finish – but it was on purpose. Al Rajhi wanted to make sure he didn’t win the stage and start first on the road; with no bikes opening the way on Sunday’s stage, he’d been thinking ahead.
Lategan leads for now but fellow Hilux runner Al-Rajhi has home advantage
Though Al Rajhi’s strategy meant the gap narrowed less than it otherwise may have done, Lategan has admitted that the dune-heavy itinerary in Dakar’s second half is “where my lack of experience will show a bit,” while Al Rajhi is on home turf.
Nasser Al-Attiyah continued to edge closer to the front, albeit taking only 1m34s out of Al Rajhi and 4m35s out of Lategan. His first target is to take the final podium spot away from Mattias Ekström’s Ford Ranger: the last Dacia at the front of the race is now 7m58s adrift of third place.
X-Raid faced a day of mixed fortunes. Guerlain Chicherit’s Dakar is over after wrecking his Mini and ending up being airlifted to hospital for checks, complaining of a sore neck. He’d gone over a large bump at high speed, which kicked the rear of the car in the air; landing nose-first, the Mini speared to the right and rolled over multiple times, destroying the rear of the car.
For the other two leading X-Raid Mini JCW crews it was a much better day: Guillaume de Mevius and Mateo Baumel won the stage by 1m34s over teammates João Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro.
