Dakar Rally Stage 6 – Arequipa to San Juan de Marcona

Sebastien Loeb

The Rest Day at the 2019 Dakar Rally is already a distant memory with over 800 kilometers covered today. The sixth stage of the world’s toughest race got the second and final week of this Dakar underway. The dunes of Peru’s Tanaka region were in unforgiving mood as some high-profile racers saw their chances of success severely dented.

Nine-time WRC winner Sebastien Loeb (FRA) and co-driver Daniel Elena (MON) started the route back to Lima in determined fashioned as they picked up another stage win. The duo’s third stage win of the rally gives them a strike rate of 50 percent at this Dakar and puts the pair second overall.

"It was quite stressful looking for the waypoints because I knew we were winning the stage and we wanted to keep the result." – Sebastien Loeb

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]A clean stage for Nasser Al-Attiyah (QAT) has further increased the Qatari’s cushion at the head of the car race – he leads Loeb by 37m43s. The performance of Al-Attiyah and co-driver Mathieu Baumel (FRA) between Arequipa and San Juan de Marcona has now put their lead at 41m14s over third placed Stephane Peterhansel (FRA).

"The dunes today were incredible, I’ve never seen anything like that anywhere in the world." – Nasser Al-Attiyah

Peterhansel conceded 18m49s minutes to Al-Attiyah’s Toyota in the Tanaka dunes. 13-time Dakar winner Peterhansel and his MINI John Cooper Works Buggy ran into trouble and he now has it all to do on the final four stages. Also suffering in the sands today was Orlen Team’s Kuba Przygonski (POL) who came home 90 minutes behind Al-Attiyah.

"Two days ago Nani (Roma) helped me in the fesh-fesh 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." – Stephane Peterhansel

The unenviable task of opening the road today fell to Red Bull KTM Factory Team biker Sam Sunderland (GBR). While the 2017 Dakar winner stuck to his task admirably, the strain of navigating plus a mechanical issue saw the British biker concede time.

“It’s very disappointing to lose time today because I’m happy with how I’ve been riding. I even thought I coped well with the navigation today, but the times will show otherwise." – Sam Sunderland

Sunderland’s team-mate Matthias Walkner (AUT) enjoyed a better stage and now lies 10m46s off new bike race leader Pablo Quintanilla (CHI). Toby Price (AUS) is still in the fight, 5m17s behind Quintanilla, but a wrist injury is a major cause for concern.

“I’m just trying to keep pace and do what I can. We’re starting to fade a bit now so we’ll see what happens." – Toby Price

Stefan Svitko (SVK) made a good start to his second week as he continues to climb the bike standings. The Slovakian biker is now up to eighth overall and has not given up on securing a second podium finish of his Dakar career.

“This was a nice stage with lots of dunes. I was close to the Top 5 on today’s stage and this helps in the overall." – Stefan Svitko

It looked like there was to be a first SxS/UTV stage win for Ignacio Casale (CHI) as the two-time Dakar quad race winner nearly got his second week off to the best possible start. Unfortunately for Casale he ran into problems late on the stage and this opened the door for fellow UTV debutant Chaleco Lopez (CHI) to take the stage win.

The truck contest is still under the control of Team Kamaz Master as Eduard Nikolaev (RUS) and Dmitry Sotnikov (RUS) continue to dictate matters. The team-mates both finished in the Top 5 on today’s stage and lead the race with Nikolaev in first and Sotnikov in second place.

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