27 OCTANE

By: RACER Staff | January 17, 2019 9:28 AM The 41st edition of the Dakar Rally came to its conclusion with the remaining competitors speeding into the Peruvian capital of Lima. After navigating a 150-mile liaison, all that was left standing between the finish line and potential victory was a 70-mile special stage.Nasser Al-Attiyah completed his dominant victory to land a hat-trick of Dakar titles. The Qatari, champion in 2011 and 2015, looked at home on the sand dunes all race and had been leading since Stage 3. Al-Attiyah, 48, had to fight off a number of challenges from the likes of Stephane Peterhansel, Sébastien Loeb and Nani Roma but never looked like letting his lead slip.“It is fantastic, we did no mistakes the whole rally,” Al-Attiyah said. “We lead from Day 3 and came to the last day with a big lead. We felt, with it being 100% in Peru and there being a lot of sand dunes, we could do well and what we know.”Defending champion Carlos Sainz helped salvage what had been a difficult Dakar by winning Stage 10 with Al-Attiyah taking no risks and coming home 12th. Roma sealed second spot overall and Loeb completed the podium.Toby Price is now a two-time Dakar Rally champion. The motorbike race leader capped off a grueling two weeks with victory in the final stage. When closest rival Pablo Quintanilla crashed in the first seven miles, Price was all but secured his victory.Price, who became the first Aussie to ever win the race in 2016, boasts an impressive record at the Dakar with four podiums out of five attempts. The Australian has pushed through the pain barrier this race having had surgery on a broken right scaphoid in his wrist in pre-event training.The triumph for Price was the 18th consecutive Dakar title for KTM. 2018 champion Matthias Walkner even ensured it was a one-two for the Austrian manufacturer while Quintanilla completed the top three.“Some things fell my way and everything worked out perfectly,” Price said. “It feels like I am living a dream at the moment. I will go home, rest this arm, have some MRI scans and see what damage we have done. I did not think I could win, I thought if I could get to stage 3, I would have been happy.”Eduard Nikolaev steered his Kamaz to a fourth Dakar title, and third in a row. The Russian, 34, came home sixth on Stage 10 but saw off teammate Dmitry Sotnikov by 25 minutes in the overall standings.Nicolas Cavigliasso crushed his rivals from start to finish in the quad category to claim his first Dakar victory at just his second attempt. The Argentine, 27, won the final stage to take his tally to an impressive nine out of 10 in Peru this year — a feat that hadn’t been accomplished before in the Dakar Rally.“It wasn’t easy. I worked hard before this Dakar,” Cavigliasso said. “I was training all day, two times a day. I trained hard with the quad, hard with the GPS. I’m so happy to finish, so happy with the feeling I had on my quad, for the team, for the people of Argentina, happy for everything.“For the rally [leading so much] is new for me. Before, every year I rode in supercross, but last year I came to the Dakar for my first time riding and first time finishing. I finished second and now I kept pushing, I wanted to finish in front. Now I’m number one in the quad and I’m so, so happy. [For next year] Now it’s too difficult to look ahead, but I spoke with my team and they pushed me every day, every stage.”Francisco Lopez Contardo, commonly known as ‘Chaleco’ enjoyed a memorable return to the Dakar after a five-year absence. The Chilean, 43, won four stages and despite coming third on the final day, comfortably clinched victory in the side-by-side (SxS) category.

By: RACER Staff | January 14, 2019 4:24 PM Stage seven of the Dakar Rally saw the remaining competitors take on the first loop stage of the race. The riders and drivers went full throttle on a 200-mile special stage around San Juan de Marcona.In the car race, the day belonged to 13-time winner Stephane Peterhansel. The Frenchman came out on top of an exciting duel with Nani Roma with the lead exchanging hands multiple times before Peterhansel shook his rival off after 125 miles.

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But it was a day to forget for Sebastien Loeb. Despite being the quickest driver on the course, Peugeot privateer Loeb was 40 minutes down at one point after an electrical fault before speeding to the end of the stage and cutting his losses to 28 minutes.“The car ground to a halt after three kilometres,” Loeb said. “It was a total power failure. Apart from this, we didn’t make any mistakes and were quite fast. It’s quite demoralising, we’ll see what we can do and what we can fight for in the coming days.”Nasser Al-Attiyah in the Toyota played it safe all day and despite a puncture in the final miles, finished fourth and still holds the overall race lead by 29 minutes from Peterhansel.After a disappointing day on Sunday when he lost time due to a damaged brake, 2017 bike champion Sam Sunderland bounced back in style to land his second victory of the race.The start was delayed 30 minutes due to fog, but when they got underway it was American Ricky Brabec who set the early pace, with Sunderland hanging with him for the first 60 miles. The British rider then upped his form and dominated the remainder of the day to finish nearly two minutes ahead of Jose Ignacio Cornejo and six and-a-half minutes ahead of new race leader Brabec. It is tight at the top, with five riders within 10 minutes of each other.“Yesterday I was disappointed because I felt that I rode well and my navigation was good,” Sunderland said. “I started out today with the intention to push a lot. I was going well, but I lost a few minutes at one waypoint. That was frustrating, but I got back on track I feel pretty good.”Russian Eduard Nikolaev of the Kamaz-Master team had such a huge lead going into the stage that he could afford to lose 36 minutes to stage winner Gerard de Rooy and still retain top spot by more than an hour.-Nicolas Cavigliasso proved once again he is in a league of his own on the sand this year, the Argentine racking up his sixth win out of seven stages in the quad category. The Drag’On Rally Team rider has an overall lead of one hour 15 minutes from Jeremias González.In the SxS race Chilean Francisco Lopez Contardo narrowed the gap to overall leader Reinaldo Varela to just four minutes after winning the stage by 22 minutes from his Brazilian rival.Tomorrow sees the race head north up the coast to Pisco with a 130-mile liaison followed by a 224-mile special stage.

By: RACER Staff | January 14, 2019 4:41 AM After a rest day on Saturday, the Dakar Rally resumed Sunday in the Peruvian dunes, where a clean stage for Nasser Al-Attiyah further increased the Qatari’s cushion at the head of the car standings he leads Sebastien Loeb by 37m43s. The performance of Al-Attiyah between Arequipa and San Juan de Marcona has now put their lead at 41m14s over third-placed Stéphane Peterhansel.“The dunes today were incredible, I’ve never seen anything like that anywhere in the world!” said Al-Attiyah.Peterhansel conceded 18m49s minutes to Al-Attiyah’s Toyota in the Tanaka dunes. The 13-time Dakar winner and his MINI John Cooper Works Buggy ran into trouble and he now has it all to do on the final four stages.“Two days ago Nani (Roma) helped me in the fesh-fesh (finely ground sand that looks like solid ground but behaves like soft mud), so when I saw him stuck today it was not possible that I wouldn’t stop to help him. I tried to pull him and ended up getting stuck myself for 20 minutes.” related Peterhansel. Also suffering in the sands Sunday was Orlen Team’s Kuba Przygonski, who came home 90 minutes behind Al-Attiyah.

By: Red Bull Content Pool | January 12, 2019 9:12 AM The 2019 Dakar Rally is five stages in and already providing motorsport fans with a host of thrilling rally raid moments from the punishing Peruvian terrain. Here are the five key moments so far:1. After a routine Stage 1 by Dakar standards, 13-time winner Stephane Peterhansel suffered a big blow on Stage 2 as his car got stuck and he had to rely on X-Raid Mini JCW teammate Cyril Despres to tow him out. It left the Frenchman 13 minutes and 55 seconds behind leader Giniel de Villiers (Toyota Gazoo Racing SA).2. Stage 2 also saw a great duel between reigning bike king Matthias Walkner of Austria and American Ricky Brabec. The Monster Energy Honda Team 2019 rider was the fastest to the first 31-mile mark (50km) with Red Bull KTM Factory Team’s Walkner cutting the gap to just one second after 62 miles. Brabec pulled clear again, only for Walkner to roar back to win the day by 22 seconds.

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3. Stage 3’s grueling weather caused chaos in the car category with reigning champion Carlos Sainz’s navigational error seeing his X-Raid Mini JCW Team car plunge into a dune hole that resulted in bad suspension damage only 24 miles into the stage. The Spaniard lost more than four hours by the finish to the leaders, which all but ended his chances of a Dakar title hat-trick.=center4. The truck category saw a big shift after a fascinating Stage 4 over 300 miles that saw Andrey Karginov claim a second consecutive stage win by just 1m29s from the Czech Republic’s Martin Macik. The Russian was just that little bit too cute for the Big Shock Racing driver over the dunes with 2014 champion Karginov cutting Kamaz-Master teammate Eduard Nikolaev’s overall lead to just 4m58s.5. Loeb showed exactly why the rest of the car field should fear him as he roared back in sensational fashion to win Stage 5 by 10 minutes, 22 seconds from overall leader Nasser Al-Attiyah (Toyota Gazoo Racing SA). The PH Sport driver, who has yet to win the highly coveted Dakar rally-raid title, hailed the day as “perfect” as he cut the overall gap to the Qatari down to 40 minutes.