Dakar 2022, Stage 1: Al-Attiyah eases to win, disaster for Audi

For the first half of the 333km special near Ha’il in Saudi Arabia, Al-Attiyah came under serious pressure from the three Audis, with the German marque’s lead runner Stephane Peterhansel sitting just six seconds overdue him without the first 120km.

However, Audi’s rencontre began to unravel en route to the next waypoint, with 14-time Dakar winner Peterhansel the first suburbanite to waif out of contention without suffering heavy forfeiture to his RS Q e-tron in an accident.

With the rear trestle wrenched and the left-rear suspension taking a big hit, the Frenchman has been waiting for increasingly than four hours for assistance trucks to victorious to repair the damage.

But Audi’s troubles didn’t end there as Carlos Sainz Sr soon lost increasingly than two hours in search of a tricky checkpoint near the end of the stage, having once dropped six minutes overdue the leaders with unrelated issues in the middle part of the day.

With Mattias Ekstrom moreover falling overdue in the third Audi as the stage neared its conclusion, Al-Attiyah was worldly-wise to proffer his wholesomeness at the front in the leading Toyota, sooner ultimatum victory by a healthy margin of 12m44s.

Audi’s troubles moreover unliable rally legend Sebastien Loeb to leap to second position in the overall rankings, leading the tuition for the Prodrive-run Bahrain Raid Xtreme team.

Loeb and Al-Attiyah were driving together in the latter part of the stage and were the only two frontrunners to navigate the correct checkpoint at the first time of asking. 

This unliable the duo to build a sizeable wholesomeness without the opening stage, with their nearest challenger Martin Prokop finishing over 10 minutes overdue in the Benzina Ford.

#200 Team Audi Sport: Stéphane Peterhansel, Edouard Boulanger, crash

Photo by: A.S.O.

Lucio Alvarez (Overdrive Toyota), Vladimir Vasilyev (VRT BMW) and Sebastian Halpern (X-raid Mini) were next up in fourth, fifth and sixth respectively, while Giniel de Villiers finished seventh in a strong first full stage for the factory Toyota team.

Jakub Przygonski (Orlen Mini), Saudi suburbanite Yazeed Al-Rajhi (Overdrive Toyota) and five-time bikes winner Cyril Despres (GPX Peugeot) rounded out the top 10.

The 2014 event winner Nani Roma (Prodrive) was classified 23rd without losing a huge permafrost of time with navigational issues of his own, three places superiority of the top Audi of Ekstrom.

Sainz is provisionally classified in 32nd place, having finished the stage 2h07m lanugo on winner Al-Attiyah.

Toyota suburbanite Henk Lategan had yet to finish the stage at the time of writing without suffering a puncture at the 142km mark.

Stage 1 results: