Prodrive’s Sebastien Loeb has cut another seven minutes from Audi driver Carlos Sainz’s overall lead after both were hit by punctures on Stage 10 of the Dakar Rally.

The gap between the two fell from 20:33s to 13:22s with two stages remaining, on a day when Guerlain Chicherit steered his Overdrive Toyota Hilux to victory on a rocky, 371km loop around AlUla.

Five-time Dakar champion Nasser Al-Attiyah, who was already out of contention due to mechanical problems for his Prodrive Hunter, is now out of the race altogether after not taking the start in the latest stage.

As far as Sainz and Loeb were concerned, it was the former who initially had the upper hand with the latter being the first of the two to suffer a puncture.

However, then the #204 RS Q e-tron of Sainz and navigator Lucas Cruz stopped, relatively briefly, at 138km in, before being stuck at the 248km mark for more than 10 minutes.

Audi team-mates Stephane Peterhansel and Mattias Ekstrom came to the Spaniard’s assistance before he was on his way again, but his live lead in the general classification had been slashed to barely more than four minutes.

Then, the pendulum swing back towards ‘El Matador’, who had his team-mates to thank for his fate not being worse.

Peterhansel recounted, “We started with two punctures really quickly so this why we were not so fast.

“At the end, Mattias arrived to Carlos because Carlos had three punctures and Mattias gave Carlos one or two wheels.

“Without these wheels, for sure, Carlos would be waiting a long time for the [service] truck.

“That’s why it’s good to have three cars in the race.”

For Loeb and his Belgian navigator Fabian Lurquin, a hydraulic jack failure made matters even worse.

“We had to climb among the rocks to find a way to be able to lift a rear tyre,” recounted the Frenchman.

“I guess we lost about 15 minutes for this.”

The penultimate, 11th stage of Dakar 2024 is another high-risk special, with 480 competitive kilometres across the rugged terrain between AlUla and Yanbu.

CLICK HERE for Bikes report

General classification: Cars Top 10