The Spanish driver Carlos Sainz is already the new leader of the Dakar 2024 with a provisional advantage of 1 minute and 51 seconds over the Saudi Yazeed Al Rajhi after a second stage in which the Frenchman Stéphane Peterhansel reached fifty victories in the category of cars after winning by 29 seconds a bitter fight with his compatriot Sébastien Loeb.
The Frenchman finished with a time of 3 hours, 54 minutes and 40 seconds a stage in which Sainz was eighth, which helped him maintain the great advantage achieved in the first stage this Saturday and place himself as the leader, thus surpassing the Belgian From Mevius.
Sainz is 4 minutes and 17 seconds ahead of Loeb, who is third, and 13 minutes and 16 seconds ahead of the winner of this stage, while he remains twelve minutes ahead of the Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah, current Dakar champion and who finished the day in fifth position.
This Sunday’s stage covered a total of 651 kilometers, 463 of them special, between Al Hanakiyah and Al Duwadimi, and took the drivers through Saudi Arabia.
The bad news for Spanish motorcyclists does not stop in the Dakar 2024, as the pilot from Salamanca Lorenzo Santolino retired this Sunday as soon as the second stage of the rally began, at kilometer 17, due to a mechanical problem that he does not know “really well” which one. was.
The Castilian-Leonese follows in the footsteps of the Valencian Tosha Schereina, who abandoned this Saturday after falling on the first day of the Dakar and breaking his left wrist, and precisely they were the two best Spaniards of the Dakar 2024 in the motorcycle category so far .
The Chilean José Ignacio Cornejo showed off on the dunes of Saudi Arabia in the second stage of the Dakar 2024, in which the second place of the Argentine Luciano Benavides and the third of Pablo Quintanilla signed a podium with a Latin American signature, although the South Americans could not snatch the leadership of Botswana Ross Branch, first overall.
