Rally

Al-Attiyah, Peterhansel and their teammates Henk Lategan and Carlos Sainz made Stage 4 the most openly-contested battle of Dakar so far, with the quartet separated by just a minute at one point during the 337km test between the Wadi Ad-Dawasir-Riyadh. Sainz, still reeling from his 31-minute loss in Tuesday’s special, led early on for X-Raid Mini, before Al-Attiyah grabbed the lead at the ...Keep reading View the full article

The “rubber band effect” as described by reigning champion Ricky Brabec continued on Wednesday, as Barreda bounced back from a lowly 30th position on Stage 3 - which put him eighth overall - to win by nearly six minutes on the 337km Wadi Ad-Dawasir-Riyadh test. Barreda first took the stage lead at the opening waypoint, but KTM’s Toby Price managed to snatch the position immediately at the ...Keep reading View the full article

Announcing M-Sport’s three-man squad this morning, Team Principal Richard Millener said the programmes he has drawn up are designed to “bring out the best in each driver”. While Greensmith is set to contest a full WRC campaign for the first time alongside Elliott Edmondson, Suninen and Fourmaux will share a second car. Fourmaux, in effect, replaces Esapekka Lappi in M-Sport's ...Keep reading View the full article

Factory Yamaha rider Short was running in eighth position on yesterday’s stage when he refuelled at the 267km point, and his bike’s engine cut out seven kilometres later. The American tried to fix what he assumed was a problem with the engine or fuel pump, but when it refused to restart he finally gave up and got into the organization's helicopter. The bike was transferred to Yamaha’s ...Keep reading View the full article

Sainz, who led the opening stage of the event, suffered a frustrating third day of action by ending it 33m34s off overall leader and X-Raid Mini team-mate Stephane Peterhansel. Despite briefly leading the 406km Wadi Ad-Dawasir third stage, Sainz and co-driver Lucas Cruz were held up by a navigation problem 156km into the special stage, which cost around half an hour, before having frustrations ...Keep reading View the full article

Honda rider Brabec has had mixed fortunes on the opening three days of the Saudi Arabian event, and currently lies 13th overall following Tuesday's third stage. The American kicked off the rally by winning the Prologue stage, but this forced him to open the road for Sunday's first stage proper, and he slipped to 24th overall. Taking advantage of a more favourable road position for Monday's ...Keep reading View the full article

The Toyota driver slashed the time deficit to overall leader Stephane Peterhansel to 5m09s by taking a second straight stage victory on Tuesday’s third stage of the Dakar Rally, as he aims to recover the 12 minutes he lost on the leaders on the opening stage on Sunday. With the three-time Dakar winner having already planned an all-out attack “from day one”, Al-Attiyah has picked out the ...Keep reading View the full article

Three-time winner Al-Attiyah was left on the backfoot when he lost 12 minutes to the leaders in the opening stage on Sunday but, after gaining three minutes back in Stage 2, the Qatari driver has narrowed the deficit to just five minutes with an emphatic victory in the 406km loop around Wadi Ad-Dawasir. Fellow Toyota driver Henk Lategan, Overdrive’s Yazeed Al Rajhi and X-raid Mini star Carlos ...Keep reading View the full article

After struggling on Monday's second stage, KTM rider Price was locked in battle with Honda's Kevin Benavides throughout Tuesday's 403km loop around Wadi Ad-Dawasir. The day's running followed the pattern seen in both of the opening two stages, as those riders opening the road lost chunks of time early on, while those lower down the running order - namely Price, Benavides and Matthias Walkner - ...Keep reading View the full article

Late on Monday, it emerged that Yamaha had discovered that water had made its way inside the fuel tank and fuel pump of Short's bike after the American rider ground to a halt shortly after the second refuelling stop on that day's Bisha to Wadi Ad-Dawasir stage. Short was unable to get his bike restarted and became the first factory rider to drop out of the race, having concluded the ...Keep reading View the full article

Short is the first of the leading runners in the motorbike class to exit the event and was classified inside the top 10 when the incident occurred on the stage from Bisha to Wadi-Ad-Dawasir on the banks of the Empty Quarter. At kilometer 273 of the second stage, his Yamaha WR450F Rally stopped suddenly in an area of fast and sandy tracks within large valleys formed by mountains of stone ...Keep reading View the full article

Two-time Dakar champion Price opened the road on the 447km test on Monday following his win on Sunday's opener, but struggled on a sand dune-heavy route and finished down in 28th position, exactly 32 minutes behind Barreda. Read Also: Dakar 2021, Stage 2: Barreda wins on bad day for KTM The Australian was also hampered by a minor problem with his KTM's fuel system that ...Keep reading View the full article

Three-time event winner Sainz started first on the road in the 457km test from Bisha to Wadi Ad-Dawasir following his victory in Stage 1 on Sunday, but had already slipped behind Peterhansel by the second waypoint at the 46km mark. Once out in front, Peterhansel slowly started carving stretching a lead in his Mini buggy, his advantage stretching to 1m31s in the first 220km as Sainz continued to ...Keep reading View the full article

Spanish rider Barreda won the 457km Bisha to Wadi Ad-Dawasir test by three minutes, 55 seconds ahead of defending champion and Honda teammate Ricky Brabec, as the pair bounced back from a difficult first stage of the rally. Barreda led at every single waypoint en route to a success that ties him with five-time event winner Marc Coma for fourth on the all-time stage wins list. Having ...Keep reading View the full article

After a one-year hiatus, Loeb has returned to the Dakar in 2021 to spearhead the new Prodrive-run Bahrain Raid Xtreme team alongside long-time co-driver Daniel Elena. But the Frenchman’s campaign got off to a horrific start in the 277km special between Jeddah and Bisha, with the 46-year-old getting lost twice in the opening 37km stretch and losing nearly 15 minutes to his rivals. Loeb’s ...Keep reading View the full article

The 2021 edition of the rally-raid kicked off with the Prologue in Saudi Arabia on Saturday amid renewed restrictions around the world following the emergence of a new strain of coronavirus in the UK. Organiser ASO arranged 21 charter flights on 18 aircraft to guarantee the presence of all competitors in Jeddah after Saudi Arabia shut down its borders to limit the spread of COVID-19. All ...Keep reading View the full article

The lead in the cars category changed hands several times during the 277km stage from Jeddah to Bisha, as overnight leader Nasser Al-Attiyah ceded three minutes in the opening 37km stretch and immediately dropped down the order. Vaidotas Zala was the first to snatch the top spot in one of X-raid’s 4x4 Mini Coopers, before Sainz and Peterhansel duked it out for the lead in the marque’s two ...Keep reading View the full article

Honda rider Brabec opened the road on the 277km timed section from Jeddah to Bisha following his victory on Saturday's short Prologue stage, but hit navigational trouble almost immediately as he dropped more than 13 minutes in the opening 37km. Things didn't get any better for the American rider after that, who completed the stage having dropped 18 minutes and 32 seconds to KTM rival ...Keep reading View the full article

Three-time Dakar winner Al-Attiyah was the fastest in the 11km timed section that determines the starting order for Sunday’s opening stage, completing the distance in 5m48s to put Toyota at the head of the order. Returning to Dakar for the first time since taking two stage wins in quads in 2016, South African Brian Baragwanath set an identical time to Al-Attiyah in the two-wheel drive Century ...Keep reading View the full article

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