Dakar: De Villiers wins, Sainz grumpy

South Africa's Giniel de Villiers has done us proud by clinching his first stage win of this year's Dakar Rally, completing the 176km tenth stage in 2h53m15 in his Volkswagen Touareg.

In so doing the 2009 Dakar winner narrowed his deficit in the overall standings, where he currently lies third, from 55m51s to 46m57s.

Meanwhile Spain's defending champion Carlos Sainz, also in a Touareg, all but conceded defeat in his bid to retain the Dakar Rally car title after losing nearly 10 minutes on his teammate and main rival Nasser Al-Attiyah.

Sainz, a two-time world rally champion, had got back into contention by winning on Tuesday but Wednesday was a disaster in which he could only finish fifth after having a puncture and broken gearbox to contend with.

This saw Sainz conceding 9m19s to Al-Attiyah, who was fourth on the stage, which leaves the Spaniard 12m37s adrift with the race set to finish on Sunday.

De Villiers was followed home by the BMW X3s of Krzysztof Holowczyc and Stephane Peterhansel, who claimed the second and third positions of the stage in that order.

American Mark Miller and South African co-driver Ralph Pitchford finished eighth after losing over an hour stuck in the dunes.

Reflecting on his win, De Villiers praised his navigator Dirk von Zitzewitz: "Today was our day. I think that I did just as good a job as my co-driver.

"However, at the end his stroke of genius made all the difference. It's fabulous also to finally win a stage in this 'Dakar', even though it came a little later than I'd hoped."

De Villiers added: "We know the Fiambala is a tricky stage so we decided not to push too hard and just maintain a good pace, like we've done throughout the rally. You have to treat the Dakar with great respect. We got all the navigation points right and made no mistakes."

Al-Attiyah, second to Sainz last year and who doesn't enjoy cordial relations with teammate Sainz, said that he had enjoyed himself.

"We got lost for seven or eight minutes but then we caught up with Stephane Peterhansel, and we tried to find the right way," said the 40-year-old from Qatar.

"Then suddenly I saw Giniel de Villier's car and I tried to follow him. From then I said we must stay calm, take it easy and try and find the way. I think it's a big day for us."

Sainz was feeling rather grumpy after the race, exclaiming: "If Nasser doesn't make a mistake, then it is over. I lost a lot of time. I didn't have any luck today. We got stuck at the beginning then took the wrong turn two or three times." -IOL & Sapa-AFP

STAGE 10 RESULTS:

CARS:

1. Giniel de Villiers/Dirk Von Zitzewitz (RSA/GER) Volkswagen: 2h53m15

2. Krzysztof Holowczyc/Jean-Marc Fortin (POL/BEL) BMW: +4:23

3. Stephane Peterhansel/Jean-Paul Cottret (FRA) BMW: +5:38

4. Nasser Al-Attiyah/Timo Gottschalk (QAT/GER) Volkswagen: +8:54

5. Carlos Sainz/Lucas Cruz (ESP) Volkswagen: +18:13

6. Ricardo Leal Dos Santos/Paulo Fiuza (POR) BMW: +30:51

7. Christian Lavieille/Jean-Michel Polato (FRA) Nissan: +43:23

8. Mark Miller/Ralph Pitchford (USA/RSA) Volkswagen: +1:04:18

9. Ronan Chabot/Gilles Pillot (FRA) SMG: 1:24:18

10. Guilherme Spinelli/Youssef Haddad (BRA) Mitsubishi: 1:33:27