Loeb was really homing in to Sainz, gaining 16 minutes but now also he stopped for 5 minutes and the gap is 9 minutes
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Loeb was really homing in to Sainz, gaining 16 minutes but now also he stopped for 5 minutes and the gap is 9 minutes
SAINZ AND LOEB AT THE FINISH | ULTIMATE
13:15
Sébastien Loeb and Carlos Sainz have wrapped up the special, with the Frenchman gaining just over 7 minutes on his Spanish rival in the overall. 13′22″ separate the two with two stages to go until the end of the 46th Dakar. Sainz had a big scare after coming to a halt and losing precious minutes, but Mattias Ekström and Stéphane Peterhansel rode to his rescue.
Carlos Sainz - Stage 10 - ENG
"I lost seven minutes or eight minutes. I had to wait for Mattias because I was running out of tyres."
Loeb
"It was a hard day for us. We had a problem with the [jack] of the car and we had two punctures, so we needed to climb the rocks to find a way to lift the rear tyre to be able to change it. We lost about 15 minutes like this. For sure, it's a bit frustrating, but okay. The stages are hard, it seems Carlos is still losing some time, so at the end, we'll see where we are tonight."
With 2 stages to go (tomorrow 480 Km special, the last one is a short 175 Km special), gap between Sainz and Loeb is 13 minutes 22 seconds... I think it's just a bit too much to close with speed alone, even if Loeb goes flat out.
The stage was won by Chicherit (Toyota Overdrive) in front of Baragwanath (Century) and Vanagas (Toyota Baltics). Chicherit gets into the top 5, De Villiers loses 3 places and drops to 8th.
Top 5:
1 - Carlos Sainz (Audi)
2 - Sebastien Loeb (Prodrive) + 13m 22s
3 - Lucas Moraes (Toyota) + 1h 02m 44s
4 - Guillaume De Mevius (Toyota Overdrive) + 1h 27m 09s
5 - Guerlain Chicherit (Toyota Overdrive) + 1h 47m 55s
13 minutes is probably indeed too much for speed alone but it's definitely far from being a comfortable gap. Punctures, navigation errors or whatever other problems may still come.
“Sorry, I don’t want to jump back into this car,” said an indignant Al-Attiyah. And he stuck to his word.
Loeb did his best to be pragmatic about his only potential helping hand against the Audi trio not sticking around to assist.
“He’s doing what he wants,” was Loeb’s riposte. “For sure in this situation, he was not so motivated to continue, he had some troubles. At one point he decided to leave. That’s his decision. It’s like that.
“He’s doing his own rally; he’s not doing the Dakar to help me. That’s how it is.
“For sure if I had another car starting behind me tomorrow it would be better.”
The other problem is the Hunter. Punctures are a given on the Dakar but both Loeb and Al-Attiyah, before he abandoned the race, had especially struggled with them. And it’s partly down to the design of the car itself.
“It’s our weak point; we have easily some punctures with the heat of the exhaust that are heating the rear tires,” explained Loeb.
Loeb is out of strategic options; this is no longer a chess match. He has to catch over 13 minutes in two stages. All he can do is push on.
Dakar’s penultimate test is a rough, rock-strewn affair, though. The puncture risk is high as it is. Knowing he’s potentially more liable to tire trouble than Sainz but with the need to push on, Loeb will have to strike the finest of balances on Thursday.
His road position is also a double-edged sword: good because he has some lines to follow, bad because of the increased puncture risk of running in the dust.
“I hope the dust will not be too big a problem also because we saw today a lot of guys complaining about the dust,” Loeb added.
“For me, when I changed the second wheel, I had two cars passing, I was in the dust, it was impossible to catch, so I decided to lift and stay behind because I couldn’t see anything and it was too risky to get another puncture in this situation.
“So hopefully tomorrow we will be able to overtake.”
He’ll need to make some passes. Starting 17th on the road, Loeb has Peterhansel directly in front of him and Sainz two cars behind.
https://dirtfish.com/off-road/dakar/...-to-win-dakar/
Sainz today had 3 punctures and was "saved" by Ekstrom, who gave him one spare tyre. With Nasser leaving, Loeb has no teammates (unless he can count on the private Hunter of Cristian Baumgart in 12th?).
For sure tomorrow Loeb will push but he'll need to drive exceptionally well to close most of the gap (last day will be short) without suffering punctures and it will be hard in the rocky terrain, as Loeb stated in the interview quoted by dimviii. Mission almost impossible, but if there's someone who can do it, it's Loeb.
Imagine if Nasser would jumping ship to M-Sport next year..Quote:
Originally Posted by focus206
Sent from my M2010J19CG using Tapatalk
so after 3 punctures,he could push again and have 2 spares for the rest of stage.Quote:
Originally Posted by focus206
at this video at 6,20 we can see all 3 audis and 3 people to change Sainz tyres
https://www.dakar.com/en/stage-10/bike/gallery/video
Loeb trying to change a wheel after the jack of the car was blocked and couldnt lift the car
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?sto...ent_deeplink=1
Go Seb! jeeez, tomorrow is going to be intense
It’s over. Loeb standing
Not surprising, the two weak points of this Prodrive Hunter... broken arms and punctures. What's surprising is drivers such as Loeb and Nasser driving for Prodrive...
The stage was won by Chicherit, in front of De Mevius and Sainz. Loeb was able to stay on the podium because Moraes lost 2 hours and dropped to 9th, which means the top 2 Hilux are from Overdrive Racing and not from the "works" Gazoo Racing.
175 Km to go for Carlos for his 4th Dakar (5th if we consider the Central Europe Rally 2008 which was ran in place of the African Dakar, but it's usually not counted).
Top 5 before the final stage:
1 - Carlos Sainz (Audi)
2 - Guillaume De Mevius (Toyota Overdrive) + 1h 26m 06s
3 - Sebastien Loeb (Prodrive) + 1h 36m 02s
4 - Guerlain Chicherit (Toyota Overdrive) + 1h 41m 20s
5 - Martin Prokop (Ford Jipocar) + 2h 16m 47s
Classification after stage 11:
Bikes
USA Ricky Brabec (Honda), 49:37'57
BWA Ross Branch (Hero), + 10'
FRA Adrien van Beveren (Honda), + 14'
CHI José Ignacio Cornejo (Honda) + 38'
ARG Kevin Benavides (KTM), + 42'
AUS Toby Price (KTM), + 47'
ARG Luciano Benavides (Husqvarna), + 55'
AUS Daniel Sanders (Gas Gas), + 1:12'
SVK Stefan Svitko (KTM), + 1:54'
CZE Martin Michek (KTM), + 2:43'
IND Harith Hoah (Sherco), + 2:53'
FRA Romain Dumontier (Husqvarna), + 2:59'
T1 Ultimate Cars
ESP Carlos Sainz (Audi), 46:24'47
BEL Guillaume de Mevius (Toyota), + 1:26'
FRA Sebastien Loeb (Prodrive), + 1:36'
FRA Guerlain Chicherit (Toyota), + 1:41'
CZE Martin Prokop (Ford), + 2:16'
RSA Guy David Botterill (Toyota), + 2:40'
RSA Giniel de Villiers (Toyota), + 2:50'
LTU Benediktas Vanagas (Toyota), + 3:00'
BRA Lucas Moraes (Toyota), + 3:05'
FRA Mathieu Serradori (Century), + 3:08'
KGZ Denis Krotov (Toyota), + 3:42'
FRA Stéphane Peterhansel (Audi), + 4:15'
T3 Challengers
USA Mitchell Guthrie (Taurus), 51:38'06
ESP Cristina Gutiérrez (Taurus), + 25'
LTU Rokas Baciuska (Can-Am), + 1:20'
CHI Francisco López (Can-Am), + 1:24'
USA Austin Jones (Can-Am), + 2:02'
T4 SSV
FRA Xavier de Soultrait (Polaris), 54:35'11
SUI Jerome de Sadeleer (Polaris), + 2'49
SAU Yasir Seaidan (Can-Am), 1:03'
USA Sara Price (Can-Am), + 1:07'
POR Joao Ferreira (Can-Am), + 1:19'
ECU Sebastián Guayasamin (Can-Am), + 3:32'
T5 Trucks
CZE Martin Macik (Iveco), 52:31'45
CZE Ales Loprais (Praga), + 2:01'
NED Mitchel van der Brink (Iveco), + 4:27'
NED Janus van Kasteren (Iveco), + 5:26'
NED Vick Versteejnen (Iveco), + 10 h
NED Michiel Becx (Iveco), + 11 h
Quads:
ARG Manuel Andujar (Yamaha), 62:11'24
FRA Alexandre Giroud (Yamaha), + 8'
SVK Juraj Varga (Yamaha), + 3:45'
LTU Laisvydas Kancius (Yamaha), + 6:46'
LTU Anastas Kanopkinas (CFMoto), + 48 h
I love the ProDrive team but Loeb deserves a better team for next year.
I HOPE Dacia can help, honestly... Audi is leaving the sport and Ford will not bring biiiig money to the Msport car...
MAYBE 2025? But jeeeez, fix those arms... And theres must be something wrong on the weight to get that amount of puncters year after year... AAAhhh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps50c5BZ5cI
Highlights of today's stage + bits of yesterday's stage. Loeb was stranded and was rescued by Chinese private Hunter driver Yungang Zi, one of the two other remaining Hunter drivers. He might have saved the podium for Loeb, who otherwise would have waited for the Prodrive assistance truck to arrive, I imagine.
Also nice sportsmanship from Seb saluting Carlos passing by and telling him to slow down on the rocky terrain.
At minute 5:31 very angry Fabian Lurquin (I think the angry voice is him and not Seb) from yesterday's punctures.
car tent to have so many punctures due to wrong exhaust design=overheating tyres.Quote:
Originally Posted by fiscorpun
Except that its obvious that suspension wise is wrong.Car jumping at rear like group A car.
Car is not only unreliable is slow too.
Dont know if prodrive can design a better car when dacia will race at 2025.
Problems with current car didnt manage to find a solution for 3 years...
Congratulations to Carlos, amazing that at his age he's still fast and consistent. He was also the only Audi without major issues (Peterhansel retired today with engine problems). I was hoping Loeb would get his first Dakar as he deserves it for putting up with that trash Prodrive, but if not Seb I'm glad Carlos got it.
Loeb won the last stage but it wasn't enough to get 2nd place back as De Mevius finished the stage in 2nd and so kept 2nd overall.
Final Top 10:
1 - Carlos Sainz (Audi)
2 - Guillaume De Mevius (Toyota Overdrive) + 1h 20m 25s
3 - Sebastien Loeb (Prodrive) + 1h 29m 12s
4 - Guerlain Chicherit (Toyota Overdrive) + 1h 35m 59s
5 - Martin Prokop (Ford Jipocar) + 2h 16m 43s
6 - Guy Botterill (Toyota) + 2h 40m 33s
7 - Giniel De Villiers (Toyota) + 2h 50m 26s
8 - Benediktas Vanagas (Toyota Baltics) + 2h 57m 17s
9 - Lucas Moraes (Toyota) + 3h 03m 12s
10 - Mathieu Serradori (Century) + 3h 04m 12s
Bikes
USA Ricky Brabec (Honda), 51:30'08
BWA Ross Branch (Hero), + 10'
FRA Adrien van Beveren (Honda), + 12'
ARG Kevin Benavides (KTM), + 38'
AUS Toby Price (KTM), + 45'
CHI José Ignacio Cornejo (Honda) + 46'
ARG Luciano Benavides (Husqvarna), + 53'
AUS Daniel Sanders (Gas Gas), + 1:14'
SVK Stefan Svitko (KTM), + 1:56'
CZE Martin Michek (KTM), + 2:48'
IND Harith Hoah (Sherco), + 2:54'
FRA Romain Dumontier (Husqvarna), + 2:59'
T3 Challengers
ESP Cristina Gutiérrez (Taurus), 53:59'47
USA Mitchell Guthrie (Taurus), + 36'
LTU Rokas Baciuska (Can-Am), + 58'
CHI Francisco López (Can-Am), + 1:11'
USA Austin Jones (Can-Am), + 1:44'
SAU Saleh Alsaif (GRally), 3:11'
T4 SSV
FRA Xavier de Soultrait (Polaris), 56:37'43
SUI Jerome de Sadeleer (Polaris), + 2'25
SAU Yasir Seaidan (Can-Am), 1:04'
USA Sara Price (Can-Am), + 1:11'
POR Joao Ferreira (Can-Am), + 1:18'
ECU Sebastián Guayasamin (Can-Am), + 3:43'
T5 Trucks
CZE Martin Macik (Iveco), 54:34'48
CZE Ales Loprais (Praga), + 1:54'
NED Mitchel van der Brink (Iveco), + 4:26'
NED Janus van Kasteren (Iveco), + 5:22'
NED Michiel Becx (Iveco), + 11 h
JPN Teruhito Sugawara (Hino), + 17h
Quads:
ARG Manuel Andújar (Yamaha), 64:16'53
FRA Alexandre Giroud (Yamaha), + 8'
SVK Juraj Varga (Yamaha), + 4:03'
LTU Laisvydas Kancius (Yamaha), + 7:13'
LTU Anastas Kanopkinas (CFMoto), + 49 h
First victory for our country after 23 years, first double after 36 years and a first stage tripple since probably forever. Yeah! :D
Also great performance by Prokop and his team!
Mirek, do you think Macik can be considered a privateer? I know the line is blurred, but after years of works or semi-works Kamaz, MAN, Iveco, Tatra, Hino etc. it would be the first time since 1986 that a privateer truck won. I imagine MM Technology belongs to Macik and I don't see any Iveco branding on his truck, then again his Italian teammates of MM Technology Bellina and Pellegrinelli have big Iveco logos on their trucks. Just for my own curiosity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mirek
For me he is a privateer. They develop and build the cars fully in house (yes, the MM Technology literally means "Martin Macík", it's their family company). They may get some engineering support from Iveco but I don't know about that. Sure now they are quite a big team because they are building trucks also for others but they are not an Iveco works team. By the way they are building an electric truck too (for certain investor).Quote:
Originally Posted by focus206
Sébastien Loeb
@SebastienLoeb
·
23h
�� The end of one chapter today and the start of a new one in a few days ��
We would have liked to end the
@BRaidXtreme
adventure with victory but it's with a new podium ��
Thanks to the whole team, to Fabian who was perfect, to
@BFGoodrichTires
and to all our partners ����
Second time I hear that Fabian was perfect. To me, Prodrive faced the biggest amount of criticism you can face in this Dakar, with Nasser leaving after his harsh words, Fabian being very angry at another puncture "it's not possible", Seb visibly disappointed and frustrated.Quote:
Originally Posted by dimviii
One can only hope they'll design the Dacia better after they gained some experience with the Hunter.