Henk Lategan prolonged his lead at the highest of the general Dakar Rally standings with a dominant performance on stage 8.
The Toyota factory driver accomplished the test in a time of 4:49:54, although he was docked two minutes after ending because of speeding, to complete the test 1:47 seconds ahead of teammate Guy Botterill and 4m4 ahead of Century driver Mathieu Serradori.
Stage 7 winner Lucas Moraes opened the track within the morning, however the Toyota driver struggled to beat the tracks left by the bikes because the course veered between classes again, having lost greater than two and a half minutes earlier.
Guillaume de Mevis was on the front of the race early on before mechanical problems struck his Mini, leaving Lategan and Botterill fighting for first and second place.
At 200km, Nasser Al-Attiyah was almost six minutes off the mark going into the fourth day on the road, with the Dacia Sandrider losing much more time at the subsequent checkpoint, with only Ford's Mattias Ekstrom trailing to victory when it comes to rivals.
While Lategan maintained a lead of over half a minute over Botterill on the 294-kilometer checkpoint, and Brian Baragwanath (Century) and Martin Prokop (Orlen Jipocar ​​Ford) occupied the remaining 4 top spots, Al-Attiyah continued to struggle, unable to cut back time.
It was a bonus that Lategan never lost, even bearing in mind a speeding penalty within the control zone. Botterill was the last of the stage leaders to cross the finish line, pushing Serradori to the rostrum.
#205 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota: Guy David Botterill, Dennis Murphy
Photo: TOYOTA GAZOO Racing
Baragwanath was fourth, ahead of Nani Roma from Ford and Yazeed Al-Rajhi (Toyota from Overdrive) – the Saudi Arabian in his pursuit of glory lost 5-20 to Lategan, but lost about seven minutes to the booked Al-Attiyah, who received a penalty, a minute and over 10 minutes from Ekstrom to ascertain themselves as South Africa's closest rival.
Prokop, Joao Ferreira, Rokas Baciuska and Seth Quintero rounded out the highest ten, with Al-Attiyah ending eleventh and Ekstrom 18th.
The result means Lategan is 5 minutes and 41 seconds ahead of Al-Rajhi heading into Stage 9, where drivers may have to cover 357km of timed sections from Riyadh to Haradh.
Ekstrom is third within the table, 28 minutes and 55 seconds behind Al-Attiyah, 34 minutes and 14 seconds behind.
Photos from the eighth stage of the Dakar Rally
In this text
Be the primary to learn about these topics and subscribe to receive real-time email updates with news on these topics
Subscribe to news notifications