Dakar stage 10 bombarded the competitors with 114km of sand and more sand, but the South African bike and car competitors did well.
Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Nasser Al-Attiyah still led the cars and Botswana’s Ross Branch took his second stage win in as many days. Another South African, Mike Docherty, now sits third overall in the novice class.
cars
Sebastien Loeb and Fabian Lurquin once again proved relentless in their pursuit of Al-Attiyah, but closing the gap, unless something drastic happens, seemed unlikely. Al-Attiyah may well be on his way to winning his fifth Dakar race.
Rookie Lukas Moraes, in another Hilux, put in an impressive performance to finish second overall. Henk Lategan and Giniel de Villiers have dropped to the top positions, with Brian Baragwanath in a Century CR6-T now sitting in eighth. This means that cars built and developed in South Africa now lead three classes.
bikes
Branch on his Factory Hero and Docherty’s R2 amateur class FK Husqvarna gave it their all from the start of this stage.
Docherty is back in the top 20, 19th overall, as he now leads the motorcycle rookie standings. SA Malle Mote hero Charan Moore finished in 52nd place after a difficult day, but had done enough to hold on to his 21-minute overall lead in the non-serve class.
South African iron lady Kirsten Landman is ranked 79th.
SA rookie leaders Eben Basson and Leander Pienaar in the T3 side-by-side prototype class took 14th place to retain their seventh place overall. Twelfth overall in this class is Geoff Minnitt, with Gerhard Snyman finishing 20th on the day.
With four days of racing to go, anything can happen to bring down the apple cart. In the Dakar race, the impossible is always possible.
Source: Motorsport Media
