As the Dakar 2020 is progressing, the competitors made their way from city of Neom to the historic place of Al-Ula across the ancient temple ruins in the backdrop. At the end of Stage 4, we saw fourth new Stage winner when Stephen Peterhansel overcame his challenges of the English pace notes and his new co-driver to cross the finish line the quickest amongst his rivals, thereby setting a time of 4h 04m 34s.
Meanwhile, Nasser Al-Attiyah, after a penalty of three minutes in the previous stage was determined to close his gap. Making most of his Toyota Gazoo, the Qatari managed to finish just two minutes behind Peterhansel. Meanwhile, the 13-time Dakar Champion was sixth in the starting order but suffered a hiccup after he got lost halfway through the stage. However, winning Stage 4 with a steady pace in his X-Raid Mini, Peterhansel was able to jump to third in the overall leaderboard. After Giniel De Villiers, Stephane Peterhansel became the second man to win Dakar stages across three continents.
Defending champion Nasser Al-Attiyah is now just three minutes behind Carlos Sainz in the overall standing. The 57-year-old Spaniard proved his mettle yet again as he was third quickest in the Stage even after encountering some early troubles. The three-way battle between Al-Attiyah, Sainz and Peterhansel is what we’d have hoped for and now it’s only getting fiercer.
Peterhansel’s gain in overall standings came at the expense of Orlando Terranova and Toyota's Yazeed Al-Rajhi. The latter was the quickest at the first waypoint but lost his position as the Stage progressed. He finished fourth ahead of SRT Racing’s Mathieu Serradori. On the other hand, Fernando Alonso also progressed on the overall leaderboard after finishing 13th in Stage 4. He was, however, seen messing up a moving chicane almost going the wrong way and barely missing a head-on collision with Yazeed. The former Formula 1 champion is now 20th in the general ranking.
Meanwhile, Dutch driver Erik Van Loon rolled his Toyota Hilux in Stage 4. And two-time Dakar champion Nani Roma suffered a five-hour delay in his Borgrward as he finished at 44th in the Stage. The contestants would now move to the city of Ha’il which is swamped with massive dunes, gigantic sandy hills with scattered desert grass and humongous rocks for landmarks.
