Huge blow at the Dakar: Al-Attiyah stops and Sainz takes the title

There are still 6 stages left and in Dakar, until you reach the finish line, nothing is decided and nothing can be taken for granted. But what no one can deny is that the Dakar 2024 has been very close to Carlos Sainz. After completing a masterpiece in the first part of stage 6, the Spanish rider came out in the last kilometers of the second day of this marathon stage wanting to finish his biggest rival, Nasser Al-Attiyah. But the Qatari pilot himself was left out of any fight. The current Dakar car champion stopped at kilometer 530, just 19 kilometers from the end of stage 6 and said goodbye to any option. Carlos is already sniffing the title, which will be his fourth Dakar sceptre, all of them with different brands, and the most historic: the first with an electric car.

After arguing the last part of this one hundred percent dune special, Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz they came out of fear Empty Quarter, the largest sand desert in the world, officially confirming the leadership in the general car classification that was hard won yesterday with a great comeback. After the problems of Nasser, winner of the last two editions of the Dakar and five times champion of this raceCarlos leads the world’s toughest event in cars at age 61 with 20 minutes and 21 seconds ahead of second place, his teammate Mattias Ekström.

Audi has too much at stake in this Dakar, which is the last of its three courses in this project before focusing all its efforts on landing in F1, to think that the brand with the four rings wants to take a few risks . between its two pilots. However, the two had to keep pushing to avoid giving wings to Sébastien Loeb who, with a big stage 6, put himself 29 minutes and 31 seconds behind in third place overall.a big distance that could be increased as the Frenchman has to open the track in stage 7, but still gives him options.

Loeb joined Sainz’s recital

If Carlos gave a recital on stage 6, Loeb’s should also be highlighted. In stage 5 he decided to lose a lot, including deliberately skipping a way point to receive a 15 minute penalty. This allows him to start from far behind in stage 6, from his house, to attack as Carlos did. His position further away from the native of Madrid allows him to attack and snatch the stage victory from Sainz by 2’01”, with Ekström in third place in the special at 1055″. That’s why Loeb prevented Carlos from winning the marathon stage, but it didn’t take away his smile. Carlos is a leader. Now he has to work to manage his margin, knowing that Sébastien Loeb needs to burn his cartridges through the more dangerous opening track on Sunday.

Saturday, it’s worth taking a break with 2384 kilometers to go

Before anything else, this Saturday the Dakar caravan will have a well-deserved rest day after the torture of the first week of the race, where everything happened. Day of reflection, breath and recharge your batteries before the last 6 days. There are still 2384 special kilometers. A world. Anything can happen and Carlos should not trust himself, especially at the wheel of such a technologically complex Audi with thousands of sensors, although the German car has shown tremendous reliability and performance so far. But no one can deny that his fourth scepter is closer than ever. His greatest enemy, the ‘Prince of the Desert’, is not in the game.

In fourth position overall is the Belgian Guillaume De Mevius (Overdrive), in 1h2’47”, while Lucas Moraes, with his Catalan co-driver Armand Monleón, is fifth in 1 hour and 4 minutes .

Nani Roma is 13th and Laia Sanz is the hardest thing

Nani Roma, with a Ford Ranger that will completely change to think about winning in 2025, He gritted his teeth on the sands of the ‘Empty Quarter’ with his co-driver Alex Haro to reach the end of the special in 19th place.thus can be done climbed to 13th position in the general classification15 minutes from a Incredible 10th position: a light prototype! This is the Challenger of Polish prodigy Eryk Goczal, guided by his Catalan co-pilot Oriol Menawho was able to take advantage of the lower weight of his car on the dunes.

Laia Sainz wins the battle against the impressive ‘Empty Quarter’. With a two-wheel drive car, on the sands he knows he has to suffer from the better performance of the 4×4. He had to overcome three grueling days in stages 5 and 6, knowing he had to avoid running into a dune to leave the famous ‘Empty Quarter’ in the middle of the fight for the Top-20 and thus push into the second week . And he achieved it. He did the hardest thing after a big start in Dakar for him. One of those Team Astara He lost time to juggle to activate a ‘waypoint’ located at the top of the large dunes, but he did not lose patience and avoided any retreat.

The KH-7 pilot finished far behind on stage 6, in 1h43′, but maintaining an impressive Top-20 of the race, in 18th position overall, 2h56′ behind his ‘boss’ Carlos, but there are options to get some positions in the next few days. Laia continues to give reasons to be confident in her future.