Jan 6 : Ford Raptors filled the top five places in the Dakar Rally as American Mitch Guthrie Jr won the third 421km stage in Saudi Arabia, his first victory in the top car category, and took the overall lead on Tuesday.
Guthrie ended the loop starting and finishing in Al Ula with a 26 second overall lead over Czech driver Martin Prokop with Sweden’s Mattias Ekstrom third.
“We started at the back and (co-driver) Kellon (Walch) killed it with the navigation,” said Guthrie.
“There were a lot of tricky spots, but we had no flat tyres. The car was great so we just kept moving all day, really.”
Spaniard Carlos Sainz, a four-times Dakar winner still competing at 63, was in fourth place overall and compatriot Nani Roma fifth.
Brazilian Lucas Moraes was sixth with Dacia Sandrider teammates Cristina Gutierrez, Nasser Al-Attiyah and Sebastien Loeb seventh, 10th and 12th respectively.
Five-times winner Al-Attiyah had led the standings after Monday’s stage but dropped to 11 minutes and 39 seconds off the pace.
Al-Attiyah, who suffered two punctures, was the only driver of Monday’s leading six to remain in the top 10. Toyota had filled the top five places in Monday’s stage.
Nine-times world rally champion Loeb also lost time with two punctures in the first 100km and no further spare tyre after that.
“We’re driving at about 20 per cent of our capacity just to avoid punctures and we still get them,” said the Frenchman.
“You don’t see the punctures coming and with two flat tyres and 300 km to go, I had no spare wheels left so we drove the rest of the stage at crawling pace.
“I’m just happy to be at the finish because at one point I really didn’t think we were going to make it”.
In the motorcycle category, Spain’s Tosha Schareina won the stage for Honda with Australia’s defending champion Daniel Sanders retaining the overall lead on a KTM, one minute and seven seconds ahead of Honda’s Ricky Brabec.
Wednesday’s fourth stage is 417km from Al Ula with an overnight bivouac in the desert.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London editing by…)
