Ha’il, KSA – Home driver Yazeed Al-Rajhi won the stage seven by 48 seconds from Frenchman Peterhansel with Nasser Al-Attiyah and reigning champion Carlos Sainz within three minutes of Al-Rajhi.
Thirteen-time champion Peterhansel extended his lead over Qatari Al-Attiyah to 7m53s with Sainz 41m06s back as Polish driver Kuba Przygoński and South African Giniel De Villiers remain in the top 10.
Peterhansel, 55, revealed: “I hit a rock with 40km to go and broke a rim. We spent a long time changing the wheel, it was quite hard. It’s a pity because we were going quite fast at the intermediate time checks and we could have put more time into our rivals today.”
In the bikes, the stage win by American Ricky Brabec, who had already noted that every rider faced with the challenge of opening the way since the start of the rally had ended up floundering, including Toby Price and his own teammate Joan Barreda. The American clocked the fastest time in the special, but the big winner was Ignacio Cornejo, who seized the overall lead by a tiny margin over Toby Price and could even do better than Brabec in the role of pathfinder thanks to his great sense of navigation. In the quad category, Nicolás Cavigliasso was knocked out of the race by a mechanical, leaving Manuel Andújar in control of the general standings by more than 20 minutes over Alexandre Giroud and Giovanni Enrico.
Yazeed Al-Rajhi achieved his goal of posting the fastest time in Sakakah, while the top two men in the general standings, Stéphane Peterhansel and Nasser Al-Attiyah, made sure not to push their cars too hard ahead of the second part of the marathon stage, in which the Qatari will benefit from starting in second place, six minutes behind his rival —a scenario tailored to his abilities. “Chaleco” López claimed his third stage win in the lightweight vehicle category, propelling him up to fourth place overall, but still 25 minutes behind the leader, Pole Aron Domżała. Dmitry Sotnikov added a fourth victory to this year’s bumper crop and increased his gap to teammate Anton Shibalov in the general standings to over 45 minutes.
Nicolás Cavigliasso made no secret of his ambitions in this year’s Dakar: “I’m here to win and take back my crown”. Following a cautious start in the prologue, the Argentinian got stronger as the race went on and got back to his winning ways in stage 3. The 2019 champion finished every stage since then on the podium… until today. A broken clutch less than 100 km before the line of the marathon stage, when he was running fifth, sent him scrambling to enlist the assistance of another competitor in a vain attempt to stay in contention. Seeing the writing on the wall, he eventually threw in the towel, relinquishing the lead to fellow Argentinian Manuel Andújar.
Yazeed Al-Rajhi’s latest stage win was six years in the making… and what better place than home? The Toyota driver’s most recent victory had come in Iquique, Chile, in 2015. Running second behind Stéphane Peterhansel shortly before the halfway point, the Saudi patiently looked for the tiniest chink in the Frenchman’s armour, which he found and exploited within the final 100 kilometres. No longer in contention for the overall victory after a gearbox problem in the opening week, Yazeed is now free to focus on chasing more stage wins, and only a fool would bet against him claiming another special before 2027.
José Ignacio Cornejo leads the general standings by one second over Toby Price after exactly 2,741.69 km of racing since the start of the prologue in Jeddah. The rest of the top 5 in the motorbike category is also very tight, with Kevin Benavides still within striking distance at 7′49″. To put it into perspective, the fifth-placed driver in the car category, “Nani” Roma, trails Stéphane Peterhansel by 1 h 59.
The 23 vehicles in the category (including every single car and truck that started the race) came together for a family portrait on the occasion of the rest day in Ha’il.
Overall standings after Stage Seven
Car
1. Stéphane Peterhansel (FRA) X-Raid Mini 26h36m50s
2. Nasser Al-Attiyah (QAT) Toyota Gazoo +00h07m53s
3. Carlos Sainz (ESP) X-Raid Mini +00h41m06s
Bike
1. Jose Ignacio Cornejo Florimo Honda 28h51m31s
2. Toby Price (AUS) Red Bull KTM +00h00m01s
3. Sam Sunderland (GBR) Red Bull KTM +00h02m11s
Truck
1. Dmitry Sotnikov (RUS) Kamaz Master 29h12m10s
2. Anton Shibalov (RUS) Kamaz Master +00h45m56s
3. Ayrat Mardeev (RUS) Kamaz Master +01h05m06s
Lightweight vehicle
1. Aron Domzala (POL) Can-Am 32h30m33s
2. Seth Quintero (USA) Red Bull Offroad +00h08m41s
3. Austin Jones (USA) Can-Am +00h09m31s
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