YANBU (Saudi Arabia): Qatar’s ace driver Nasser Al Attiyah won his fifth stage at the Dakar Rally on Thursday after he finished nearly two minutes ahead of leader Stephane Peterhansel.
But the three-time champion still trails the Frenchman with one day to go with Peterhansel starts the final stage, a 225-kilometre run across chains of dunes to Jeddah, leading by a quarter of an hour as he seeks to add to his record 13 victories in the race.
“We lost just a few minutes, it’s nothing,” said Peterhansel. “There’s only one day to go… It’s time to cross fingers and hope that we will be in first place at the end”.
The longest stage of the race, a 464-km drive across sand dunes from Al Ula to Yanbu brought a day of changing fortunes.
Peterhansel led with an advantage of more than three minutes over Al-Attiyah after 306 kilometres but suffered two punctures.
Khalid Al-Qassimi took the lead after 362 kilometres at which point Al-Attiyah had closed to within seven seconds of Peterhansel.
Peterhansel regained the lead and was 38 seconds ahead of the chasing Al-Attiyah 30 kilometres from the finish but could not hold the lead.
