Loeb shrinks Sainz’s lead as Chicherit wins stage

Loeb began the 371km Alula loop stage on the back foot as he briefly stopped at 53km, but fought back to gain five minutes on overall leader Sainz at the 225km checkpoint. 

Drama struck the Audi driver as he stopped for around 10 minutes at around 248km, and required assistance from team-mate Mattias Ekstrom and Stephane Peterhansel, which Loeb pounced on to cut the deficit in the overall standings down to 4m13s at the next timed point. 

The Prodrive contender then endured another brief stoppage at 307km, which enabled Sainz to regrow his lead to above 11 minutes. 

Both drivers completed relatively untroubled runs to the stage end, which saw Sainz’s overall lead settle at 13m22s from Loeb, to set up a tense final two stages this week. 

With Loeb plus the three Audi runners restrained by stoppages, it allowed Overdrive Toyota’s Chicherit to dominate the stage for his first triumph of the 2024 event. The stage victory moved him up to fifth on the overall standings ahead of Century Racing’s Mathieu Serradori. 

Behind the top two on the overall classification, Lucas Moraes remains third for Toyota, the deficit cut down to just over an hour, with Overdrive Toyota’s Guillaume de Mevius in fourth still comfortably ahead of Chicherit and Serradori. 

Martin Prokop has retained seventh for Orlen Jipocar Ford, as Toyota’s Giniel de Villiers was another contender to drop time and finished the stage 20th, which allowed Guy Botterill (Toyota) to move to just over seven minutes behind him in ninth overall. Fellow Toyota driver Benediktas Vanagas rounded out the top 10. 

Defending Dakar Rally champion Nasser Al-Attiyah has officially bowed out of the event having been plagued with mechanical issues with his Prodrive Hunter throughout the contest.  

After an engine breakdown on Monday’s Stage 8 forced him to withdraw, the five-time Dakar winner restarted on yesterday’s Stage 9 in a bid to collect world championship points but once again ground to a halt, this time with a rear suspension problem – which led the Qatari to declare he did not wish to drive his car again.  

Provisional classification after Stage 10 (Top 10 only):