Uyuni, Bolivia - Nine-times world rally champion Sebastien Loeb continued to make light work of his Dakar debut by claiming his third stage win on the gruelling event on Thursday.
The French driver, behind the wheel of a Peugeot, took the fifth stage between Jujuy in Argentina and Uyuni in Bolivia to extend his lead in the overall standings.
Loeb won the 327km timed run in 3h32m34s with Peugeot team-mates Carlos Sainz and Stephane Peterhansel completing a 1-2-3 clean sweep for the French manufacturer.
“It was a good day,” Loeb said. “I pushed really hard from the start. I had a good feeling and the car was perfect again, so there's nothing to add.”
“Tomorrow we will be first on the road so it maybe will be another story, but it's a part of the experience that we have to take.”
Loeb also showed no ill-effects from having to race in Bolivia's notorious, lung-busting high altitude which peaked at 4600 metres on Thursday.
In the overall standings, he now leads 11-time winner Peterhansel by 7m48s and is 13m26s ahead of Sainz.
Qatar's Nasser Al-Attiyah, the 2015 champion, is fourth in a Mini after finishing fourth on Thursday.
Al-Attiyah was 3m07s behind Loeb on the stage but is 14m16seoff the pace overall and admitted the Peugeots were looking almost unbeatable.
“Yesterday and today never have I pushed in my life like this,” said the Qatari. “We drove at more than 100 percent, but we have no chance against the Peugeots, no chance.
“It's impossible, if the Peugeots don't stop, it's difficult to catch them.”
TWO TOUGH DAYS FOR GINIEL
For Giniel de Villiers in the leading Toyota Gazoo Racing SA Hilux, Stages 4 and 5 proved tough. He started the two stages - paired as the so-called Marathon Stage, where the cars receive no service overnight - fairly strong. Then a near-collision with a slow biker in Stage 4 gave him a big scare, and he tapped off a bit.
"It seems we might have been too cautious after that," said De Villiers after completing Stage 4. "We lost more time than I would've liked, but we had a better run on Stage 5."
De Villiers drove a steady stage as the Dakar Rally moved from Argentina to the high plains of Bolivia. An unfortunate puncture in the latter part of the stage, however, robbed him of a better stage time, and he finshed seventh, to retain his sixth position overall.
Leeroy Poulter in the second works Hilux put in another solid performance on Stage 5, after moving into fourth overall at the end of Stage 4. He reported clean runs through both Stages 4 and 5, while still losing time to the leading Peugeots, and finished fifth on Stage 5, moving down one position to fifth in the standings.
Their third team-mate, Dakar rookie Yazeed al Rajhi, struggled with headaches and stomach cramps throughout Stage 5 due to the altitude. He could manage only 16th for the day and dropped one position to 10th overall.
Sean Reitz in the Red-Lined Nissan Navara put in another Dakar personal best, finishing 39th and jumping eight places to 51st overall while Colin Matthews and Mark Corbett, their naturally-aspirated Century Racing CR5s suffering badly from the altitude, came in 59th and 60th respectively.
That dropped Corbett seven places from 32th to 39st overall, and Mathews from 34th to 41st.
MOTORCYCLES
In the motorcycling section, Australia's Toby Price, who was third overall in 2015, won the stage on his KTM.
Price clocked 4hr03m44s to see off KTM team-mates Stefan Svitko, by 2m33s, and Matthias Walkner at 2m40s off the lead.
“This marathon stage was definitely difficult,” he said afterwards. “Today was a little bit tricky with the navigation. I had to stay on top of the game.
“I caught a couple of other guys and got in some dust. I made a couple of little errors in the end there, because I was a little too worried to take my eyes off the road. It was a pretty crazy track.”
Another KTM rider, world enduro champion Antoine Meo, finished second before being demoted to eighth after receiving a five-minute time penalty.
Portugal's Paulo Goncalves, who was 8m56s behind Price in 12th, still leads the overall classification with a 1m45s advantage over Svitko and 1m47s in front of Price.
KTM rider Kobus Potgieter battled through in 120th, dropping three spots to 113th overall, while Wessel Bosman, also on a KTM, finished 118th – but so tough was the marathon stage that he moved up four places overall to 116th!
Quad star Brian Baragwanath had another rough day at the office, finishing 17th, but managed to claw back two places to 15th in the overall standings. His Team Rhide team-mate George Twigge put in a solid ride, however, to claim his best stage result yet - ninth - and move up from 23rd to 16th in the overall rankings.
Ted Barbier, on the third Team Rhide Yamaha 700 Raptor reached, Uyuni 35th and moved up five places to 32nd overall.