Having dropped to third in the general classification after two navigational errors on Friday, Loeb re-established himself as Al-Attiyah’s closest competitor with a commanding stage victory as the rally resumed with a 402km test from Riyadh to Al Dawadimi.
The Prodrive/Bahrain team driver locked horns with Audi’s Carlos Sainz at the beginning of Stage 7, trailing his former WRC teammate by just four seconds 121km into the day’s competitive running.
However, by the next waypoint he was more than three minutes in the lead, eventually clinching a 16th Dakar stage win by an impressive margin of 5m26s as Al-Attiyah jumped Sainz to finish second in the day’s order.
The Qatari driver was never in the hunt for victory in the seventh stage of the rally, dropping nearly seven minutes behind Loeb at one point, but clawed back some of the lost time to finish right behind his nearest title rival.
#200 Team Audi Sport Audi: Stéphane Peterhansel, Edouard Boulanger
Photo by: A.S.O.
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