Dakar Day 3: Barreda breaks the bank

Joan Barreda

In Bikes, Joan Barreda delivered a high-level performance on the tricky route leading to San Salvador de Jujuy and won his first special stage of the year with a huge lead over his rivals, perhaps a decisive step towards his first triumph on the Dakar. As for Stephane Peterhansel, he is aiming for a 13th win overall and picked up his first victory of the year in taking advantage of the problems suffered by the rally's first leader Nasser Al-Attiyah.

Focus

Today brought a change of scenery and the first portions of off-terrain rallying. However, it is the steep climb in altitude with passages above 5,000 meters that could wreak havoc among the competitors at the end of the day. River bed crossings, plus fast and winding tracks on the first part of the stage gave way to a finish on bumpy and trial-like terrain, requiring the competitors to remain watchful and keep their cool to avoid losing out big time on the route to San Salvador de Jujuy.

The essentials

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]Joan Barreda hit his rivals with a veritable hammer blow on this third stage. On all-out attack from the very first kilometers of the special, the official HRC rider soon opened up an impressive gap, in particular reaching the first time check point with a 20-minute lead over the struggling Toby Price. The Australian loses command of the general standings to Barreda whilst Sam Sunderland made the most of a tough day to finish 13'29 behind the Spaniard and overtake Paulo Goncalves in the general standings.

In the car race, Stephane Peterhansel pulled off the best performance of the day by winning in San Salvador de Jujuy. Carlos Sainz and Sebastien Loeb completed a 1-2-3 for Peugeot on the day's special stage, as well as in the general standings. Having lead for a long time, Nasser Al-Attiyah lost out big time, as did his team-mate Giniel de Villiers.

In the quad race, Gaston González took his first stage victory on the Dakar and climbed up to second in the general standings behind the new leader, who is none other than the day's runner-up, Ignacio Casale. Finally, in the truck category, Eduard Nikolaev gave Kamaz their first victory this year, but only by 48 seconds better than the Tatra driven by Martin Kolomy, who can console himself with the lead in the general standings with a cushion of merely 33 seconds.

Performance of the day

By finishing 16 minutes behind Joan Barreda, Pierre-Alexandre Renet by no means achieved the best time of the year, but the man from Normandy put in a very good performance on only his second Dakar to pick up third place on the day, in front of many favorites for outright victory. Behind the handlebars of his official Husqvarna, the former MX3 world champion perfectly handled a tricky start to the stage and will now have to be taken seriously by all his adversaries.

A crushing blow

Peterhansel won the 3rd Stage in Cars

Nasser Al-Attiyah, the winner of the first stage, runner-up on the second day and leader for most of today, looked to be well set to regain command of the general standings and once again show off his skill with his new Toyota Hilux. However, the Qatari's rally suffered a brutal change in fortunes due to a small crash which ripped off one of his wheels on the second part of the special, robbing him of any chance to win outright in Buenos Aires. All that is left is to put on a show for the rest of the rally…

Stat of the day

By winning his 15th special on the Dakar, Joan Barreda equaled the number of stage triumphs accomplished by the late Richard Sainct.

Quote of the day

Joan Barreda: “Today was one of the days that we picked and we prepared for it from yesterday to attack. It was a really tough stage but I kept my focus during all the stage".

Standings

Bike Top10 Overall

Quad Top-10 Overall

Truck Top-10 Overall

Cars Top-10 Stage 3