Toby Price takes the overall lead in the bikes after 2021 Dakar Stage 6, and Carlos Sainz takes the stage win in the Cars but Stephane Peterhansel still out in front. After a super-difficult 2021 Dakar Stage 5, Dakar organisers…
After a super-difficult 2021 Dakar Stage 5, Dakar organisers reduced 2021 Dakar Stage 6 by 100km and delayed the start by 1.5 hours for the run from Al Qaisumah to Ha’il.
Despite finishing the stage down in 7th, Aussie Toby Price (Red Bull KTM Factory Team) has taken the overall lead in the Bike category after the first week of the Dakar and now has a 2m 16s lead over Monster Energy Honda Team 2021 riders Keven Benavides and Jose Ignacio Cornejo Florimo, who sit in second and third overall.
The big challenge for competitors this year has been with navigation, especially for those leading out each day with no tracks ahead of them, and the fact that competitors are only provided with the day’s road book 20 minutes before the start. “They’re definitely making a key point of the navigation for us at the moment… and I’ve never seen the cars in that much carnage either,” Toby Price said.
Aussie Dakar rookie Daniel Sanders (KTM Factory Team) had another fantastic day, finishing Stage 6 in third behind Joan Barreda Bort (Monster Energy Honda Team 2021) and Ross Branch (Monster Energy Yamaha Rally Team). Sanders is now in 12th overall.
The other Aussie riders in the event, Michael Burgess (BAS Dakar KTM Racing Team) and Andrew Houlihan (Nomadas Adventure) finished the stage in 43rd and 67th respectively, and now sit in 38th and 61st overall.
In the Cars, Carlos Sainz (X-Raid Mini JCW Team) finished Stage 6 ahead of Toyota HiLux drivers Yazeed Al Rajhi (Overdrive Toyota) and Nasser Al-Attiyah (Toyota Gazoo Racing).
Mr Dakar, Stephane Peterhansel (X-Raid Mini JCW Team) retains the overall lead by 5m 53s over Al-Attiyah. After one week of racing Peterhansel reflected, ““If we take stock after one week, then, yes, it’s been a good week, a really good week, because we didn’t make many mistakes. We saw that the car is displaying really good performance.”
The Kamaz – Master team took the top three spots in the Truck category on Stage 6 with Airat Mardeev coming home ahead of his teammate and overall class leader Dmitry Sotnikov, followed by Anton Shibalov. Sotikov now leads the category overall by 37m 34s over Shibalov.
