Dakar 2023: nightmarish day for Loeb, what to remember from the second stage


The second stage of the Dakar, 589 km long including 430 km of special, caused damage with its many stones. The first to cross the finish line in a desert plain surrounded by canyons did so more than an hour behind the indicative time estimated by the organizers.

As a result, Al-Attiyah (Toyota) won by putting five minutes and five seconds in sight of Carlos Sainz (Audi) who came third, the Dutchman Erik Van Loon slipping into second position 14 seconds behind the Qatari and four-time winner of the famous rally-raid.

Difficult day for Loeb

For Prodrive, the stage turned into a disaster. Two of his pilots, Sébastien Loeb and Guerlain Chicherit punctured several times, and the help of their teammate Orlando Terranova did nothing.

“The whole special was hell,” said Loeb, mine closed, getting out of his car with the missing hood, torn off during an impact. “It was a special ‘wreck car’,” he criticized. “At the driving level, completely uninteresting, driving in rocks in slow motion, trying to cross without puncturing and, well, we had punctures three times”.

“We had to repair a bit with wicks, but the wick thing was broken, and so on… We did everything we could to ride slowly but there was nothing to do, it was not at all suitable for a car like ours”, summed up the nine-time world rally champion.

“Beautiful Battle”

In contrast, Al-Attiyah found the stage “to be good!” and only punctured once. “We were very careful because there were a lot of stones, rocks. The navigation was not easy but we did well. We tried to attack in some places, but we also wanted to preserve the tires to avoid punctures,” he said at the finish.

“It’s going to be a great battle”, predicts the Qatari, who is now 2nd in the provisional general classification, 2 minutes and 12 seconds behind Carlos Sainz. Loeb tumbled to 26th place more than an hour and 21 minutes behind.

“The general is a bit dead,” reacted the Frenchman hotly.

Klein dominates on the motorcycle side

On the motorcycle side, American Mason Klein crossed the finish line first and won the second stage despite a penalty. Behind the KTM rider, the German Sébastien Bühler (Hero) took 2nd place, 1 min 9 sec behind the winner of the day, followed by the American Skyler Howes (Husqvarna) at 1 min 13 sec, according to provisional results may still evolve depending in particular on possible penalties.

Australian Daniel Sanders (GasGas), who led the way for a time, finally stalled and finished ninth 3 min 24 sec behind the first while American Ricky Brabec (Honda), winner of the first stage, came 15th with a delay of 8 min 19 sec.

Klein is the new leader of the general classification, with 1 min 41 sec ahead of the Australian Toby Price (KTM) and 2 min 3 sec ahead of the Spaniard Joan Barreda (Honda) who received a penalty one minute. On Tuesday, rocks and canyons will once again be on the program for a 670 km stage (including 447 km of timed special) to the outskirts of Ha’il.



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