Sanders upbeat despite dropping back in competitive Stage 3 tussle

Daniel Sanders still had a smile despite losing a small amount of ground in a competitive Stage 3 of the 2024 Dakar Rally.

The highest placed Aussie was Toby Price in ninth place, just over six and a half minutes from the ultimate pace set by Argentine Kevin Benavides.

With fellow Australian Daniel Sanders coming home 13th, a further four minutes back, Price jumped ahead of the GasGas rider in the overall standings to seventh.

Despite losing some ground Sanders is upbeat about how his rally is progressing.

“I am feeling great as we always do,” he said.

“Today was another tough stage, long, sunny and dry.

“We pushed a little hard in some dust and tricky navigation but we have not crashed which is a good thing.

“We are still in one piece halfway through this marathon section, so time to have a good sleep and come out swinging tomorrow.”

Benavides made an impression by overcoming Ricky Brabec to win a tight Stage 3 on the bikes.

After more than four hours of riding Benavides and Brabec were separated by just 11s with the KTM rider on top.

However, that difference grew to a minute and 11 seconds following a penalty being added to Brabec’s time.

Ross Branch currently leads the overall standings by three minutes and 11 seconds over Jose Ignacio Cornejo Florimo.

Yazeed Al-Rajhi snatched the overall lead on four wheels from Carlos Sainz in a 438km journey from Al Duwadimi to Al Salamiya where the stage lead swapped multiple times between Lucas Moraes, Mattias Ekstrom, Al-Rajhi and Nasser Al-Attiyah.

In the end Moraes won the stage by a slender 9s over Ekstrom with a time of 4:14.51.

The wash up means Al Rajhi leads the overall battle by 29s ahead of Sainz with a further eight and a half minutes to Ekstrom.

The lead changed hands after Sainz, who despite finishing sixth, still lost two minutes and 20 seconds to his arch rival after a close call.

“It wasn’t a perfect stage for me, I lost about five minutes or so, and then I was going fast, but then I was behind Mattias and I almost overturned the car,” Sainz explained. 

“We had a puncture and had to stop to reset the impact detector and a couple of things.”

Unfortunately there was significant pain for Aussie rookie Glen Brinkman and co-driver Dale Moscatt.

The pair competing in T3 were never able to complete the stage due to a driveshaft issue occurring in the preceding liaison.

Driver Brinkman explained the strange drama but confirmed they will be back on the road for stage 4 after plummeting 33rd in class due to a 24 hour penalty.

“It was a very short day,” he said.

“30km before the start of the special stage we realised that we may have had a driveshaft problem so we pulled over and there was one.

“We changed one and then had to change out the other one because there was a small problem with the spare.

“Ultimately that is what actually stopped us, being able to put the spare part in, but the car is all fixed now so we are on our way to restart on stage 4.”

Stage 4 is a shorter 299km special from Al Salamiya to Al Hofuf where competitors may face some navigation puzzles bailing through the oasis dotted with three million date palms.

Image: Flavien Duhamel / Red Bull Content Pool

Dakar Rally bikes classifcation

Dakar Rally cars classification

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