DAKAR 2020

Three cars separated by 16m20s and a lot of dunes ahead

This is the menu we still have for this Dakar 2020.
After six stages, Carlos Sainz / Lucas Cruz (Mini Buggy) lead with 23h33m03s, 7m48s in front of Nasser Al-Attiyah/Matthieu Baumel (Toyota), with Stéphane Peterhansel/Paulo Fiúza (Mini Buggy) at 16m20s. all open, as can be seen , in this Dakar, with the three most experienced pilots of the squad in the first three places of the general classification.
For Carlos Sainz, the fact that he leads in the middle of the race doesn't mean much: “I'm glad I got here in this position. It's going well, but now I confess I need the day off.” So far, the Spaniard started the race in the third place, reached the leadership in the third stage and no longer left there.
Very briefly, Carlos Sainz has shown his experience and in Step 3 added up nothing less than his 33rd stage victory in the Dakar to lead the overall ranking, in front of one of his most loyal rivals, Nasser Al-Attiyah.
The next day, in Stage 4, was Stéphane Peterhansel's day, who had to wait until here to taste a victory in stages, managing by means to reduce the margin for his rivals, rapprochement in the fight for the general. Nasser Al-Attiyah and Carlos Sainz have managed this day well against the attack of the ‘Mr. Dakar’.
In Stage 5, Carlos Sainz managed to win three more minutes from his biggest rival, Nasser Al-Attiyah. Stephane Peterhansel, third, was still lurking, ready to take advantage of any sign of weakness in his two main opponents.
On the day before the rest, in Stage 6, Carlos Sainz only let the winner of the day, Stéphane Peterhansel, win him a minute, with the French and Portuguese, Paulo Fiúza fighting hard to catch up in the overall ranking: "it's great to win stages, I thought I was too old to do it, but here I am. It has been a Dakar more tiring mentally than physically.”


WHAT IS NASSER AL-ATTIYAH COMPLAINING ABOUT?

In 2019, already without the official Peugeot team, but with the X-Raid already with its buggy, it was easily realized that its car had not moved to the Toyota of Attiyah(image above), with the catari easily beating the Dakar with 46m42s advance to Nani Roma, which was second with a Mini 4X4.
In 2019, very briefly, Toyota had no opponents. Here we come to 2020.
It was already known that the Dakar would be hard, as it has been, everyone has had problems, bigger or smaller, but it sounded a little strange to hear Nasser Al-Attiyah say that: “I am disappointed because we attacked at full speed, but the Mini buggy is too fast for us. What can we do? We have no choice but to keep doing our job. We have already completed the first part of the race without having problems and doing a great job, which fills me with satisfaction. Next week promises to be tough ... a lot of dunes are waiting for us.”
Logically, there was a quick reaction on the side of the Mini and Carlos Sainz was clear: "Toyota won the Dakar last year (ndr, 46 minutes ahead of Nani Roma's Mini 4×4) and now they are seven minutes away (ndr, 1st Carlos Sainz, Mini, 23h33m03s; 2nd Nasser Al-Attiyah (Toyota), +07m48s; 2nd Stéphane Peterhansel, Mini, +16m20s) so I think they are very close. The truth is that we have worked very hard on the development of our car and on solving the many problems we had last year, and this is proving to be the case in this test,” said Sainz.
Nasser Al-Attiyah, in turn, has done what he can to maintain his position, but it has been realized that this year will not have the task as easy as last year. It seems that the FIA has well balanced the movements, wondering if the terrain of the second half of the race favors the Mini or the Toyota and that only David Castera, the race director and his ASO team know.
In any case, Attiyah has to complain more about the tires that equip his Toyota, because he has had several holes that would probably be worth him much more than the seven and a half minutes he is late for the leader.

José Luis Abreu, from Portugal