Nasser Al-Attiyah remains on course for a fifth Dakar Rally title as Mitch Guthrie Jr. and Rokas Baciuška both secured stage wins during stage seven on Saturday.
While stage seven was cancelled for bikes and quads, there was no break for the competitors on four wheels as cars, trucks and side-by-sides tackled the challenging route.
There was no change at the front of the car race as defending champion Al-Attiyah and co-driver Mathieu Baumel hold an advantage of more than an hour over their closest competitor. The Qatari driver, 52, said, “This was really not an easy stage. We were really pushing a lot from the beginning. We lost a few minutes but we took care to put ourselves in a good position for tomorrow.”
It was another good day for Baciuška of the Red Bull Can-Am Factory Team as the Lithuanian and his co-driver Oriol Mena secured a third stage win and now sit top of the overall T4 rankings.
There was also a hat-trick of stage wins for the Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team USA presented by BFGoodrich thanks to American Guthrie Jr. and co-driver Kellon Walch. The duo took the win after some tight racing against team-mates Seth Quintero/Dennis Zenz and race leaders Guillaume De Mevius/François Cazalet.
Tomorrow will the bikes and quads rejoin the rally for stage eight.
A 345km timed special stage will be the final business of this Dakar’s first week.