French star battles to keep Bahrain Raid Xtreme in third spot despite rough break in Dakar Rally

TDT | Manama                                                     

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Sebastien Loeb was yesterday frustrated in his bold challenge for a first Dakar Rally victory with Bahrain Raid Xtreme (BRX) after a mechanical issue on the notoriously difficult penultimate stage of the event in Saudi Arabia.

With four stage victories behind them, Loeb and Fabian Lurquin in the BRX Prodrive Hunter were aiming for another fastest time on yesterday's 480km test from AlUla to Yanbu, to again close the gap on rally leader Carlos Sainz, before today's finish in Yanbu.

But a big landing after 132km damaged the Hunter’s suspension, and 75 minutes was lost before a broken front righthand A-arm was replaced when the YunXiang China Team’s sister Hunter crew arrived to assist, allowing Loeb to continue.

He lost several more minutes with another stop after 370km and also suffered a series of punctures, but went on to complete the stage. Despite huge time losses, he holds third place overall and can still chase a third successive runner-up finish on today's final 175km timed section.

Adrift

Loeb had begun the day just 13 mins 22 secs adrift of Sainz’s Audi and had high hopes of reducing the gap over brittle terrain which was expected to produce the most punctures of the event, and eventually interrupted his charge.

Guerlain Chicherit won the stage, with third-fastest Sainz extending his outright lead to 1hr 27mins 6 secs over Belgium’s Guillaume De Mevius in a Toyota Hilux. Barring a major last day disaster for Sainz, Loeb’s focus will be on another Dakar podium finish for the BRX Prodrive Hunter.

He goes into the final stage 7 mins 56 secs away from De Mevius and 7mins 18 secs ahead of Chicherit in fourth place. Loeb said at the finish: “It was a difficult stage for us. We lost more than one hour early on after hitting a big rock and we thought it was completely finished for us.

But we were lucky that the Chinese driver in the Hunter (Yungang Zi) had spare parts that we needed. “So we took it. We repaired, we started again, then we had some punctures, even when driving slow. It was really hard on the tyres today, and we reached the end with three flat tyres on the car, but we are here.”