Another disappointment for Carlos Sainz, fined for speeding

Sébastien Loeb took a long time to set up his tent to go to rest, but he succeeded and it seems that he slept peacefully towards another stage victory on the Dakar.

It came as a surprise to the Frenchman, who watched as Carlos Sainz tightened the screws on his bruised Audi to set the best pace of the day, a futile performance after the stewards handed him a five-minute penalty for breaking the speed limit.

Another negative spin on his baleful involvement.

The driver from Madrid, who no longer has anything to lose and does not count for the overall victory, dominated the eighth special, but was left without a prize again after being caught at 70 km/h in a 30 km/h zone.

It was the second day of the semi-marathon stage improvised by the organization, with departure and arrival at Al Duwadimi, a flooded camp a few days ago where last night the participants slept without comfort.

Some set up the tents inside the catering tent or the one in the press center (this is the case of Sainz), while others, like Loeb, chose to sleep outdoors.

"It's not my thing, what do you want me to tell you", the French ironized as he tried to place his tent on the mud.

“Do we have pickaxes?”

It was another twist in the toughest Dakar on record, since the real marathon (without technical assistance of any kind) takes place next Thursday and Friday in the middle of nowhere.

Loeb won with a time of 3h 34m 24s ahead of Nasser Al-Attiyah (+2m 11s), who did push knowing that after a long connection to Riyadh, the mechanics will have time tonight and tomorrow, a rest day, to leave your Toyota spotless.

The overall leader maintains more than an hour ahead of Henk Lategan, his teammate and biggest pursuer now that the rally is reaching its halfway point.

The French from the BRX, the only one of the rest of the favorites who is still waiting with the fishing rod, takes 1h 52m 06s.

The beating of the last few days has punished everyone, but particularly Sainz and his co-driver Lucas Cruz.

"After sleeping in the tent last night and barely four hours the day before, it will be good for us to rest in the hotel," said the man from Madrid.

They have been 2,604 km in three days, 1,036 of them timed.

They have also spent almost eight hours without moving in the middle of the desert, waiting for the assistance truck after having an accident and saying goodbye to the general victory in the sixth stage, and having to assist the car of their teammate Mattias Ekström in the seventh.

“The balance of the first week, complicated.

A little disappointed by how things have gone for the entire Audi team, with the problems that Stéphane and I had, those of Mattias… The only thing we can do is move on ”, he summed up.

Howes maintains the lead in motos

Ross Branch (Hero) won the stage in the motorcycle category with a time of 3h46m18s ahead of Daniel Sanders (GasGas) and Mason Klein (KTM), who received a two-minute penalty and lost the overall lead.

Skylar Howes (Husqvarna) maintains the reference position with 1m13s over Kevin Benavides and Klein.

Joan Barreda lost 12 and a half minutes after starting fourth in the eighth special.

Both he and his teammates who were opening the track (Luciano Benavides, Howes and Toby Price) lost a lot of time compared to the runners who followed their tracks later.

The man from Castellón falls to eighth place overall and is 8m21s behind the leader.

Lorenzo Santolino, a 35-year-old from Salamanca who was sixth in 2021, is twelfth in the table at 31m22s and seeks to reach Dammam among the top ten riders in the event.

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