Dakar Stage 11: Sainz Sr. and Brabec headed to victory

Carlos Sainz Sr (Car Category) and Ricky Brabec (Bikes) have moved to within touching distance of the 2024 Dakar Rally victory.

Ricky Brabec was equal to the task in Stage 11, still unshakeable despite Ross Branch’s stage victory, and Carlos Sainz was able to take advantage of Sébastien Loeb’s setbacks.

Cars

Sébastien Loeb has experienced sufficient joys and sorrows on the Dakar to fill an adventure novel. The French driver has enhanced his roll of honor with plenty of stage wins and has envisioned himself winning the race as many times as he has actually lost it.

The tracks to Yanbu became another of his roads to ruin on which his chances of victory were crushed, the day after he amazingly breathed new life into his battle with Carlos Sainz.

This morning, with 13 minutes to make up on risky terrain, Loeb had an opportunity to pressure his rival into a mistake. Despite the puncture problems he encountered on the first and tenth stage, the hunter did not hesitate in going on all-out attack to hoover up the bunches of seconds he required.

It was not the tires that put paid to his hopes, however, but too brutal a landing after a jump, which broke his front-wheel axle unit after 132 km of the Dakar Stage 11.

Without any immediate solution, the man from Alsace seemed condemned to wait for his assistance team and lose a number of hours as a result.

Help arrived, nevertheless, in the form of the Hunter driven by Chinese driver Yungang Zi, who was kind enough to give up the part that allowed the former WRC champion to try and keep his place on the podium.

To do so, he had to reach the finishing line without delay and avoid punctures. In the end, Loeb stopped three times and completed the stage with his wheels in a terrible state, but did enough to save his third place, leaving him 7 minutes ahead of Guerlain Chicherit.

Bikes

Today’s stage from AlUla to Yanbu, the final destination on this year’s Dakar required an enormous amount of focus from the exhausted riders in order to complete the 420 km stage as fast gravel tracks, stony plateaus and broken dunes were a mixture that could derail anyone at the last moment.

Ricky Brabec planned to go out on the attack so that he could relax going into tomorrow’s finale and although his main rival Ross Branch was the fastest at the end of stage eleven, the 2020 Dakar winner kept his head down to keep himself firmly at the top of the overall standings.

Leading out today, Brabec slowed in the last 100 km of the special so that teammate Adrien Van Beveren could catch up and take a share of the bonuses to help his own podium bid. Although an honorable thing to do, the American profited from over five minutes in bonuses which moved him up from fourth to second on the stage with just over half a minute the final difference to Branch on the timesheet.

With the gap exceeding ten minutes to Branch overall, bar any issues the 32 year old American is on course for his second Dakar victory tomorrow.

Adrien Van Beveren has spent this week chipping away at Branch for that second spot on the podium and at the end of play yesterday had got it down to just a minute.
The Frenchman has opened the way for over 1137 km during this year’s event, 619 km of it on his own, so quite understandably was in no rush to catch up to Brabec and Cornejo when he left the line this morning in third. Although he also had planned to attack today, he ended up with a few surprises including a fall from a near miss with a camel which activated his airbag.
His third place finish today has unfortunately increased the gap by four minutes to the Botswanan who will have the task of opening tomorrow. This could though potentially give Van Beveren an advantage to leapfrog him heading into the final kilometres.

Despite not feeling 100% Nacho Cornejo put in a super effort on stage ten when he finished just two seconds behind Brabec and although he caught up to his teammate early on today, 115 km into the special he came to a standstill with a fuel pump issue. He managed to rectify it but lost over twenty-five minutes and sadly his chance to fight for the final spot on the podium in what was a cruel blow to the Chilean’s impressive Dakar adventure this year.

Dakar Results

Car Dakar Stage 11

Car Dakar Ranking Overall

Bikes Dakar Stage 11

Bike Dakar Ranking Overall