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Having had his own navigation dramas in Stage 3, Sanders went into Stage 4 with a 6m51s lead over Honda’s Skyler Howes.
However, by the end of Stage 4, ‘Chucky’ had blown out his lead to 13m16s after several rivals fumbled.
Howes, Ross Branch, and Ricky Brabec all made navigation mistakes. Brabec, who sits fifth overall and 29 minutes off the pace, was left fuming.
“Definitely not the best day of the week,” Brabec lamented.
“You know, I opened almost all day. I’m really happy with my riding, and I’m happy with my navigation – but, yeah, like, 15 kilometres back, man, we made a big mistake and that definitely killed us. But we’re here. We’re healthy. We’re walking, and nothing you could do about it. Hopefully, some of the other guys followed the bad lines that we did.”
Honda rider Tosha Schareina leapt from fifth to second in the standings as a result after he finished just 15 seconds off the pace set by Sanders in Stage 4.
Stage 4 victory marked Sanders’ third stage win of the rally.
The 415km stage proved challenging for the Australian, who said he briefly got lost.
“I got lost a fair bit before that and then I was catching back up to Nacho and Tosha and then got into the dust there,” said Sanders.
“I don’t know, it was alright for me. I just tried to follow the lines and just check the road book and make sure everything’s good. But I know this area and it can be tricky so you just gotta focus and be good with it all.
“A little bit of cat and mouse at the end, trying to slow down. And yeah, Tosha was leading and he stopped for two minutes so then I opened the mirror. So, it’s all good. We’re looking forward to that.
“I knew it was a good chance to extend the overall lead after I lost so much time yesterday, which was out of my control. It was important to get that lead back. And then now tomorrow, the pressure’s back on to try and not lose too much and open really well. But this area is definitely going to be hard, and the navigation’s tricky.
“I just focused on myself and I did the same in Morocco and the guys made mistakes behind so it’s good when you can just focus on what you’re doing and not looking at other lines and making sure because you’re 100 percent focused on the road book and then I’m sure they’ll be following the lines a little bit but hopefully no mistakes and no big ones.”
