Shop
Stephane Peterhansel has picked up his first stage win of Dakar 2022 but Nasser Al-Attiyah continues to hold a commanding overall lead with two days to go.
Al-Attiyah was seventh-quickest on Stage 10 at 1:25s slower than his nearest rival for the title, Sebastien Loeb.
However, the Toyota Gazoo Racing driver’s margin to Loeb in the rally classification is still 32:40s.
Stage 10, which included a 375km special between Wadi Ad Dawasir and Bisha, turned out to be a Team Audi Sport one-two.
Either of Peterhansel or Carlos Sainz locked out the top two throughout, with the former eventually prevailing over the latter by 2:06s.
The result means that each Audi driver has one stage win in this, the first year of the hybrid RS Q e-tron, although ‘Mr Dakar’ and Sainz are well back in the overall classification due to earlier mishaps.
Third on the day was Loeb’s Bahrain Raid Xtreme team-mate Orlando Terranova, with fourth going to Toyota Gazoo’s Henk Lategan.
Loeb himself was fifth-quickest, 4:25s off Peterhansel’s pace, but it was not enough to make much of a dent on Al-Attiyah’s advantage.
“We can’t try any more than we are already doing to catch Nasser,” said the nine-time World Rally Champion.
“The gap is big, but we’ll do everything we can in these last two days to get as close as we can.”
Al-Attiyah noted, “We only lost one minute from Seb today and tomorrow we have a good position on the road.
“Today we had no punctures or any issues with the car. Mathieu’s [Baumel] navigation was good.”
In the overall classification, Overdrive Toyota’s Yazeed Al Rajhi is third at 23:08s behind Loeb, from Terranova and X-Raid Mini JCW’s Jakub Przygonski.
Ekstrom is 10th, Sainz 15th, and Peterhansel 61st.
The penultimate stage, a loop around Bisha featuring a 346km special, starts this evening (AEDT).
CLICK HERE for Bikes report
CLICK HERE for extended highlights of Stage 10
General classification: Cars Top 10
| Pos | Driver | Co-driver | Team | Time/Gap |
| 1 | Nasser Al-Attiyah | Matthieu Baumel | Toyota Gazoo Racing | 33:13:37 |
| 2 | Sebastien Loeb | Fabian Lurquin | Bahrain Raid Xtreme | +0:32:40 |
| 3 | Yazeed Al Rajhi | Michael Orr | Overdrive Toyota | +0:55:48 |
| 4 | Orlando Terranova | Daniel Oliveras Carreras | Bahrain Raid Xtreme | +1:29:18 |
| 5 | Jakub Przygonski | Timo Gottschalk | X-Raid Mini JCW Team | +1:41:02 |
| 6 | Giniel De Villiers | Dennis Murphy | Toyota Gazoo Racing | +1:45:42 |
| 7 | Vladimir Vasilyev | Oleg Uperenko | VRT Team | +1:49:36 |
| 8 | Sebastian Halpern | Bernardo Graue | X-Raid Mini JCW Team | +2:13:21 |
| 9 | Mathieu Serradori | Loic Minaudier | SRT Racing | +2:30:23 |
| 10 | Mattias Ekstrom | Emil Bergkvist | Team Audi Sport | +2:42:46 |
