WRC legend Sebastien Loeb is in the fight to score his first Dakar after winning a shortened fifth stage in Bolivia.
In the bikes, Sam Sunderland demonstrated his navigational skills to win in Oruro, taking advantage of his rivals’ problems, on a special that was shortened to 219 kilometres due to poor weather.
Loeb ended the day smiling after obtaining his second victory in 2017 and the sixth of his young rally raid career, as the Peugeot driver calmly resisted a comeback by Nani Roma (Toyota) at the end of the special by 44sec.
Stephane Peterhansel climbs to the top of the general standings by 69sec from Loeb. Cyril Despres and Roma are in striking distance while Mikko Hirvonen and Giniel De Villiers have now been distanced due to navigational mistakes.
With four official cars, Peugeot has made sure it has the means to dominate the final podium in Buenos Aires. However, a fifth 3008 DKR in the hands of Romain Dumas is taking part in his third Dakar and is progressing by improving his best result with every stage that passes.
The former Porsche endurance driver broke into the top five on the fifth stage, less than one minute behind the official Peugeot driven by Cyril Despres. As a result, he enabled the lion branded constructor to put four cars among the first five finishers.
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Sunderland became the fifth different winner in five stages in the bike race. Juan Pedrero, Toby Price, Joan Barreda and Matthias Walkner preceded him and now the race is even more open than ever.
The Factory KTM rider has been consistent since the start of the rally and was biding his time to strike. He achieved his goal with his second special stage victory on the Dakar and he got the bonus of the overall lead in the process.
“I started off with a good feeling this morning and feeling fast,” said Sunderland.
“I tried to really focus on the navigation. There were one or two really tricky places. Sometimes it works out OK and sometimes you have problems. Today it worked out ok for me. We’ve got a long way to go.
“Yesterday I was really down and annoyed because I’d made a mistake and now I’m really happy, so now I need to try and stay calm and keep focused because it’s only day five”.
The Englishman was the only rider to not get lost in the Bolivian dunes. Pablo Quintanilla, Xavier de Soultrait, Matthias Walkner and Joan Barreda all lost a lot of ground due to navigational issues.
Barreda endured a horror 24 hours after his 18 minute lead was slashed with a 60-minute time penalty for a refuelling infringement by officials overnight. That was followed by a hellish stage and getting lost after approximately 150 km of the special. The Spaniard lost 37 minutes to the day’s winner and plunges down the general standings to 1h12min behind the leader.
A solid day for Australia’s Todd Smith with the 15th fastest time on the stage and has climbed from 21st outright to be 17th overall. The same couldn’t be said for Matthew Hart who was 109th on the stage and is 62nd outright.
In the quad race, Kees Koolen went flat out to grab his first stage victory on the Dakar with a big lead over the day’s runner-up Gustavo Gallego. Simon Vitse is the overall leader.
Gerard de Rooy grabbed a second consecutive truck stage victory and is now in command of the general standings aboard his Iveco.
The UTV stage went the way of Polaris racer Maganov Ravil, but it’s Leandro Torres that leads the field.
Competitors head to the Bolivian capital La Paz tomorrow on a day which totals 786km with 527km of timed running.
VIDEO: Stage 5
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