Al-Attiyah claims narrow Dakar stage victory

Published on Monday 5 January 2009 22:22

NASSER Al-Attiyah claimed a narrow triumph in the third special stage of the Dakar Rally to close on overall leader Carlos Sainz.

Al-Attiyah (BMW), who won on day one, completed the 695km Puerto Madryn-Ingeniero Jacobacci stage in four hours 29 minutes and 27 seconds yesterday, with Sainz following him home only 35 seconds back in his Volkswagen.

The Qatari driver has reduced the time deficit in the overall standings to only 3mins 40secs on Sainz.

In the motorbikes, Marc Coma claimed his second victory of three stages to extend his lead. The Spaniard, who won the opening stage on Saturday, overcame the problems he suffered on his KTM yesterday to win yesterday with a time of 5hrs 18min 17secs.

He was 17min 49secs ahead of both his compatriot Jordi Viladoms (KTM) and Norway's Pal Anders Ullevalseter (KTM).

Coma, who was reportedly given oil by an eight-year-old child to allow him to continue the race yesterday, has stretched his overall lead up to 39min 11secs over David Fretigne (Yamaha), who finished seventh.

Title holder Cyril Despres suffered more troubles as he developed a bulge on his wheel which badly restricted his speed. The Frenchman ran more than one hour behind the leader to end 47th.

In the trucks, the Russian trio of Vladimir Chagin, Sergey Savostin and Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz), who started yesterday in fourth, won the special stage in 5hrs 15min 59secs.

Czech driver Josef Machacek (Yamaha) arrived at the end of the third stage 1min 47secs ahead of Frenchman Christophe Declerck (Yamaha) in the quads.

However, having won the first two stages, Declerck still leads by more than half an hour.

In today's fourth stage, the competitors go from Ingeniero Jacobacci to Neuquen and will cover 488km, of which 459km will be timed.