Yazeed Al Rajhi along with co-driver Dirk Von Zitzewitz of the Overdrive Toyota team put on a stellar show coming within top three on a second consecutive stage. The duo snatched the lead from Peterhansel with only around 50km remaining and held it till the end to take their first stage victory in the 2021 Dakar with a time of 04:21:59 hours. Stephane Peterhansel and co-driver Edouard Boulanger of the X-Raid Mini JCW team finished in P2, 48 seconds slower than Al Rajhi. Completing the stage in third position was Carlos Sainz, who has yet again finished in the top three after a brilliant Stage 6 performance.
Nasser Al-Attiyah and co-driver Matthieu Baumel of Toyota Gazoo Racing despite all their efforts couldn’t make it in top three and finished in P4, 2:48 minutes behind Al Rajhi. Nani Roma with co-driver Alexandre Winocq of the BRX team returned to the top ten, only the third time at the 2021 Dakar so far. However, fellow BRX team driver Sebastian Loeb can’t seem to catch a break, as he ran into problems 30km shy of the finish line with a broken wheel hub.
Stephane Peterhansel continues to lead the overall rankings and today's stage allowed him to stretch the gap between his closest rival, Nasser Al-Attiyah by two minutes. The time difference between the top two is now 7:53 minutes. Carlos Sainz also continues to hold on to P3 in overall rankings. Team BRX’s Nani Roma, courtesy his stellar performance today has made his way up to P5 in overall rankings.
Tomorrow’s stage will see the contestants traversing from Sakaka to Neom for a total of 669km of which 375km consists of the special stage. This stage should offer a good mix of sand and stone tracks and is also said to be a very scenic one.
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