In the penultimate Stage of Dakar 2020, Carlos Sainz is looking comfortable having finished third. The Dakar legend still has a lead of 10 minutes over defending champion Al-Attiyah. The Qatari has failed to bag a single Stage win this year, which is a first in his 12 consecutive Dakar races. Meanwhile, Stephane Peterhansel, who has the most Dakar wins compared to any other driver, was flawless on the dune infested Stage 11.
This is Peterhansel’s 80th Stage win of his career. Having lead the championship since Stage 3, Carlos Sainz will bag his third Dakar title if he manages to keep Attiyah off by 10 minutes on Stage 12. Meanwhile, Al-Attiyah is bearing the flag for Toyota Gazoo and might have to settle for second this year if not overtaken by Peterhansel on the last day.
Meanwhile, Fernando Alonso also managed to gain positions in the overall standing after finishing at P8. He is now 13th overall. With his consistent performance, Yazeed Al-Rajhi is fourth overall but there’s a considerable gap of more than 47minutes between him and Sainz. On the other hand, Attiyah’s teammate, Giniel de Villiers is more than an hour in trailing followed closely by X-Raid’s Orlando Terranova. Rounding off the top 10 are Bernhard Ten Brinke, privateer Mathieu Serradori who also has a stage win this year, Yasir Seaidan who lost places after getting his Mini stuck the previous day and China’s Wei Han.
After finishing Stage 10 in fourth place and moving into the top 10 overall, Pierre Lachaume ended up doing several barrel rolls yesterday just 236 kilometres into the specials. He totalled his Peugeot 2008 DKR while descending a massive dune and ended his Dakar campaign with just one day to go.
