(MENAFN- The Peninsula)
Agencies
Shubaytah: South African Henk Lategan moved back atop the overall standings after the 10th stage of the Dakar Rally won by Spain's Ford driver Nani Roma while Qatari Nasser Al Attiyah's title hopes took a significant hit due to a navigation error yesterday.
Roma covered the 120km special in sand dunes from Haradh to Shubaytah in 2hr 6min 34sec, handing Ford their first Dakar stage win since 2015.
Brazil's Lucas Moraes (Toyota) was second, 18sec adrift, with Saudi Arabia's Dania Akeel (Taurus) rounding out the podium, at 1min 40sec.
Overnight leader and home hope Yazeed Al Rajhi (Overdrive) lost precious minutes after becoming stuck in sand to hand Lategan, in his Toyota, the advantage. The South African now sits 2min 27sec ahead of the Saudi driver in the general classification.
The five-time Dakar winner Al Attiyah encountered severe navigation issues just 9 kilometers into the stage, resulting in a costly 21-minute time loss to the stage winner Roma. The setback has significantly hit back at Al Attiyah's chances of challenging overall leader Lategan, who now holds a commanding lead of just over 30 minutes.
However, with Mattias Ekstrom is less than 4 minutes ahead in the standings, Al Attiyah and his French co-driver Edouard Boulanger, can still target a podium finish.
"I'm very disappointed, but what can you do? We could have had a great stage, but we'll see what position we're in and what we can do tomorrow. Every day is very important, and we had a good pace, but we lost a lot of time,"Al Attiyah said after finishing the stage in the 61st position.
"This is the most disappointing day of my life," Al Attiyah added.
Today's 11th stage, the Empty Quarter Challenge, features a testing 275km special around Shubaytah in which organisers said it was“not too late to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat or climb onto a podium” on a terrain riddled with pitfalls in gravel sand, as well as in the salt lakes in between.
The race to be crowned motorbike champion seems much more clear cut as Australia's KTM rider Daniel Sanders holds a lead of more than 16 minutes on Honda's Tosha Schareina of Spain.
The stage honours went to South Africa's Michael Docherty, also riding a KTM.
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