Carlos Sainz Sr. and Sebastien Lob will compete for victory in the 2024 Dakar Rally

The most prestigious rally-raid in the world, the Dakar, has entered its decisive stage. There are only three stages left before the end of the race, and given that the last of them is traditionally a “walking” stage, even two. That is, we can already draw some conclusions. The main one is the failure of Nasser al-Attiya, the five-time Dakar champion and its winner of the previous two years. Due to the fact that the Qatari master no longer claims anything, the fight for the title unfolded between two legends of the world classic rally championships – the Spaniard Carlos Sainz Sr. and the Frenchman Sebastien Lob.

Before the start of Dakar 2024, Nasser al-Attiyah was considered his obvious favorite in the most prestigious off-road class. Not surprising, given that the Qatari driver already had five championship titles to his name. In addition, he took three of them while playing for different teams. So the next change of car – and al-Attiya during his career managed to be a champion behind the wheel of Volkswagen, BMW (he drove for the Mini brand) and Toyota – did not cause any particular concern. Moreover, Prodrive’s Hunter car—namely, the Qatari moved to it (such cars are available to citizens for about $1.5 million apiece)—seems to have been tested by both time and practice. For example, Sebastien Lob himself, a nine-time world champion in classic rally, races this car.

The change in technology, however, did not benefit Nasser al-Atiyah. It is not known for certain what the problem was – the inability of the car to withstand the loads to which the driver subjected it, or, on the contrary, the inability of the driver to properly use the potential of the new car. Be that as it may, the Qatari at the eighth stage of the rally-raid was forced to come to terms with giving up the fight for the title: his car’s engine failed. The crew made it to the bivouac, where the car was repaired, but al-Atiyah will go further solely to get points in the overall standings of the World Cup of Cross-Country Rallies.

The retirement of the favorite made the situation much easier for his competitors – Carlos Sainz Sr. and Sebastien Lob. Formally, their confrontation could be called a battle of experience and youth. After all, Sainz is already 61 years old, and Lob is “only” 49. In fact, the battle is between two monsters of auto racing. In addition to winning two World Classic Rally Championships, Sainz has four more titles won at the Dakar. Loba has a record nine classic rally titles in history.

Another thing is that the Frenchman, who has been participating in the Dakar since 2016, still cannot win it. It looks like it won’t work this time either. After the ninth stage on Tuesday, which Lob, by the way, won, his gap from Sainz Sr. is more than 20 minutes. It is, needless to say, solid. Yes, it does not formally guarantee anything, since in the three stages remaining before the finish, anything can happen. But still, a master of Sainz’s level is able to bring the race to victory in the mode of protecting the gained advantage.

Much more unpredictable – and this is quite predictable, given the previous results – the situation should have developed in the motorcycle class. Until recently this was the case. For example, the American Ricky Brabec (Honda) and Botswana’s Ross Branch (Hero) who took the lead started the eighth stage with a difference of just one second in the overall standings. By the end of it, Brabec’s lead exceeded 40 seconds – not yet a disaster. But Branch performed the ninth stage frankly weakly, allowing the Dakar 2020 champion to “leave” for just over seven minutes. A monstrous gap for this class. And if nothing unexpected happens (in the motorcycle class, tragedies are especially frequent: the current Dakar took another life – on Tuesday Carles Falcon died from injuries received in an accident on the second stage), then Brabec will not have any difficulty in reaching a new title .

Finally, in the truck class, the competition in which is again taking place without the legendary KamAZ-Master team (it has won 19 Dakars), the winner is actually already known. Czech Martin Macik (Iveco) is first after nine stages with a gap of 1 hour 54 minutes over his compatriot Ales Loprais (Praga).

Alexander Petrov