A dramatic day in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday resulted in a shake-up of the Dakar Rally leaderboard after Stage 9.
The 418km marathon stage to a no service bivouac in Wadi Ad Dawasir was a memorable one for Energylandia Rally Team’s Polish brothers Eryk and Michal Goczal. Eryk took the stage honours alongside co-driver Szymon Gospodarczyk ahead of his sibling Michal and Diego Ortega.
Toyota Gazoo Racing W2RC’s Toby Price finished third alongside navigator Armand Monleon to ensure a podium lockout for the Toyota GR Hilux IMT Evo.
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Roma leads Dakar Rally
Nani Roma and Alex Haro, who started the day fourth in the overall classification, will start Stage 10 as the new race leaders after their eight place on Tuesday was enough to knock Nasser Al-Attiyah and Fabian Lurquin off their perch at the top of the standings.
Roma’s Ford Racing team-mate Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz also leapfrogged Al-Attiyah and could have ended the day as overall leaders had it not been for a one-minute penalty. Sainz nonetheless moved up to second overall in the Dakar Rally standings, just 57 seconds behind Roma. Five-time winner Al-Attiyah drops down to third overall, a mere 13 seconds adrift in his Dacia Sandrider.
Toyota Gazoo Racing W2RC’s Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings, who started the day in third overall six minutes and eight seconds off the lead, finished in 16th place to slip down to fourth place. Lategan is just over five minutes behind All-Attiyah and 6:13 behind Roma.
Variawa moves up
The third factory Ford Raptor of Mattias Ekstrom and Emil Bergkvist dropped from second overall to fifth in the Dakar Rally standings. After starting the stage four minutes adrift of the lead, Ekstrom is now 11:19 behind Roma.
Stage 8 winner, Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa’s Saood Variawa and French co-driver Francois Cazalet finished 18th on Tuesday to move up from 13th to 11th on the leaderboard.
Variawa’s team-mate Guy Botterill and Spanish navigator Oriol Mena is 15th overall, less than two minutes behind Century Racing’s Brian Baragwanath and Leonard Cremer. Baragwanath missed out on the Stage 9 podium by only 22 seconds.
Docherty shines on two wheels
On two wheels, Michael Docherty finished the day in third place on his KTM, with Sherco’s Bradley Cox in eighth place. Lying 11th overall, Cox is the leading South African in the bike section, led by Australian Daniel Sanders.
Dunes is the name of the game during the second part of the Dakar Rally marathon stage on Wednesday. The 420km timed section around the dunes of Bisha could be make or break for many of the front runners.
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