French driver Thierry Magnaldi won the eighth stage of the Dakar Rally on Saturday as two-time defending champion Stephane Peterhansel regained the overall lead in his Mitsubishi.
Magnaldi, in a Schlesser-Ford, took the 508km stage from Atar to Nouakchott in five hours and 56 seconds to celebrate his second stage win on this year’s event.
Magnaldi finished 6:52 ahead of the United States’s Mark Miller in a Volkswagen, while Peterhansel took over from countryman and teammate Luc Alphand, the overnight overall leader, who was fifth on Saturday.
Peterhansel now enjoys a 32-second lead over Alphand, with third place driver Giniel de Villiers of South Africa, in a Volkswagen, 26:16 off the pace.
”I got stuck in the sand and we also had two flat tyres,” said Peterhansel. ”The latter part of the stage was very fast and we reached 196kmh with a tail wind on this section.”
Alphand admitted he had endured a day to forget.
”It was a bad day for me,” he said. ”I got stuck for about a quarter of an hour and we got lost for a time. It is disappointing to lose four minutes to Stephane as well.”
Despite Mitsubishi now occupying the top two places in the overall standings, the team insist they are not celebrating victory yet.
”It is only halfway to Dakar, but I will not deny that we have had a very positive couple of days,” said team director Dominique Serieys. ”But this is the Dakar Rally and anything can happen at any time. We will just keep our focus and maintain our concentration next week and see what develops.”
In the motorcycle section, French rider David Casteu won his first-ever stage.
The KTM rider won the eighth stage in a time of 5:55:55, finishing 2:13 ahead of American Chris Blais, while titleholder Cyril Despres was a further four seconds adrift.
Despres rode through the pain barrier as he was suffering from a dislocated left shoulder and tendinitis in his right wrist, the latter of which he started feeling last weekend in the opening stages in Portugal.
Despres is still fourth overall, 26:54 adrift of Spanish leader Marc Coma.
Coma has a lead of 6:23 over compatriot Isidre Esteve Pujol and 11:49 on Chilean Carlo de Gavardo.
After the special, the competitors still had a 26km liaison to Nouakchott before earning a well-deserved rest day on Sunday. — Sapa-AFP