“It’s not ideal. We overturned on a dune. The car is a little damaged and so are we,” Sainz admitted upon arrival at the bivouac.
Rollover on a dune
The Spanish driver also runs the risk of continuing to lose a lot of time in the more than 300 km that remain on Monday to finish the stage, since his car is badly damaged by the accident and he will not have mechanical assistance in this marathon stage.
In the virtual general classification, Sainz is 49:33 behind Al Rahji (Toyota), provisional leader in cars.
Nor did things go much better for another of the favorites, Loeb, nine-time world rally champion, but who has never yet been able to inscribe his name in the record of the famous event.
Al Attiyah’s Dacia teammate suffered “an electronic problem) and lost 32:20 at the end of the day, leaving him 33:33 behind the virtual leader of the race.
The Argentine Juan Cruz Yacopini is provisionally in fifth place, just over four minutes behind the Swede Mattias Ekstrom, provisional third.
The Spanish Nani Roma, virtual leader during part of the stage, gave up time at the end and is eighth, 18:14 behind the leader.
Sanders remains leader in motorcycles
In the motorcycle category, the fight continues between the Australian Daniel Sanders and the American Ricky Brabec, current champion of the test, who loses another 40 seconds on the virtual leader, whose advantage is now slightly more than four minutes with respect to his rival .
Botswana Ross Branch lost almost four minutes, but remains third in the virtual overall standings, six minutes behind Sanders and just over two minutes ahead of Spaniard Tosha Schareina.
The Chilean Pablo Quintanilla is 6th in the provisional general classification, 24:26 behind the leader, with only six seconds ahead of the Argentine Luciano Benavides (7th).
His brother, Kevin Benavides, double winner of the event, had many problems and is far away in the virtual general standings.
At 5:00 p.m. local (2:00 p.m. GMT), participants were invited to arrive at one of the six rest areas provided by the organization, where they will spend the night before starting the march on Monday.