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Sebastien Loeb will fight to the finish to keep alive the chances of a first Dakar Rally victory for Bahrain Raid Xtreme (BRX) as the event heads for its conclusion in Yanbu on Friday.
Partnered with Fabian Lurquin in the Prodrive Hunter, Loeb won three of the event’s first seven stages and was close to recording a hat-trick of successive best times when he ran out of luck in Saudi Arabia.
The nine-time World Rally Champion had been piling the pressure on overall leader Carlos Sainz, following an outstanding victory on the new 48-hour Chrono stage in the Empty Quarter with another impressive win following the rest day in Riyadh.
It was a similar story on Monday’s 483km stage, as Loeb set an electrifying pace past the three quarter point to be more than three minutes faster than the Spaniard’s Audi.
However, the Frenchman lost ten minutes when trying to locate a waypoint, allowing Swede Mattias Ekström to claim the day’s honours in another Audi.
Despite the setback, Loeb still held second place overall, and he completed the day determined to fight back and attack the 24 minutes 47 seconds advantage held by Sainz.
“It was a difficult day for us unfortunately and not the result we expected after such a strong start this morning making up some time,” he said at the end of the stage.
“We were pushing hard with a good rhythm, but on one way point we struggled to find it and lost around 10 minutes, so that was very frustrating.
“We’ve lost six minutes overall to the lead so it is not what we wanted, but it is like this. It’s the Dakar. We will push the max tomorrow and try again.”
With four stages remaining at that point, and 1,443 kilometres still to be run against the clock, the organisers have warned that the penultimate stage on Thursday is going to be tremendously difficult, as has regularly been the case for many a Dakar over the years.
The huge dunes are now behind the competitors until next year, but some smaller ones lie ahead on the route, combined with black volcanic rocks that pose the threat of punctures at any time.
Loeb took the BRX Prodrive Hunter to a record six successive stage wins last year on his way to a second successive overall runner up finish. He will be aiming for another similar charge to go one better this time.
