Iquique, Chile - Pablo Quintanilla won Monday's attritional eighth motorcycle stage of the Dakar Rally as overnight leader Joan Barreda Bort's title bid evaporated in the spectacular sand dunes on Chile's Pacific coast.
The gruelling 784km trek from Bolivia's salt flats in Uyuni to Iquique - of which 416km was timed - led to a host of high profile contenders for the 2015 title limping out, including last year's runner-up Jordi Viladoms and top South African rider Riaan van Niekerk.
While Honda's Barreda Bort, who led the standings by more than six minutes overnight, is still riding his chance of glory has gone up in smoke as he lost almost one and a half hours.
The riders' classification is now led by last year's winner, Marc Coma, who was second overall going into Monday's ride.
The four-times Dakar winner, riding a KTM, finished ninth behind Quintanilla to lead overall by more than nine minutes from Paulo Goncalves.
Coma, 38, admitted the stage had been extremely gruelling.
“It was a very extreme day,” he said. “It was too difficult on the salt lake, there was the altitude, the cold, everything mixed in.”
TOP NAMES OUT
Three other high profile contenders whose race ended prematurely on Monday were Michael Metge, Alessandro Botturi and Daniel Gouet.
KTM's Chilean rider Quintanilla was celebrating his first ever stage win, made all the sweeter as it came on home turf. He moved up a place into third overall, almost half an hour behind Coma.
He took the stage by just 11 seconds from Juan Pedrero Garcia, with Slovakia's Stefan Svitko another second away in third.
Fourth was Australian Dakar first-timer Toby Price, only 41 seconds behind the stage winner, and fifth was Laia Sanz, who is edging closer to being the first ever woman to win a motorcycle stage on the event described as motorsport's Everest.
“Today was a really hard day,” confessed Sanz. “At the beginning some riders didn't want to start because it was dangerous and cold.
“But in the end for me it was a good stage. I'm very happy with fifth position,” added the 29-year-old, who first competed in the Dakar in 2011.
The only South African still running in the motorcycle category is Capetonian Albert Hintenaus, who finshed 69th for the day, and made up five places to 51st overall.
Monday was a rest day for the car category which Qatari veteran Nasser Al-Attiyah leads.
Tuesday's ninth stage is a 450km run from Iquique to Calama.
AFP