Al-Attiyah tightens grip on Dakar lead but Sanders suffers

Defending car champion Nasser Al-Attiyah extended his overall lead in this year's Dakar Rally by winning Thursday's fifth stage in his Toyota.

The Qatari ace's smooth day contrasted to Daniel Sanders, the overnight leader in the motorcycling category who imploded with a series of navigating errors.

Australian Sanders finished the day in eighth spot overall, 13 minutes and 18 seconds off new leader Skyler Howes of the United States.

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Al-Attiyah, though, is sitting pretty with a 22min 36sec lead over Audi's 'Mr Dakar' Stephane Peterhansel, the Frenchman who has a record 14 wins in the race with six on a motorbike and eight in a car.

Al-Attiyah's Toyota team-mate Yazeed Al-Rajhi of Saudi Arabia is just over 27min further back.

Peterhansel is still searching for his 50th stage win in the race -- he finished third on Thursday after filling second on Wednesday -- and found the 373-kilometre loop round Hail a tough ask.

"For me, it was one of the hardest stages in my life," said the 57-year-old.

"I don't know why. Something about it was really not nice.

"We took a lot of impacts on the back of our necks, so it was not an easy stage for sure."

Last year's runner-up Sebastien Loeb had another trying day after experiencing two dreadful ones on Monday and Tuesday before a welcome stage win on Wednesday.

However, the Frenchman, a world rally champion for a record nine times, lost another 20 minutes on Thursday after rolling his car.

"I made a mistake on a tricky dune," he said.

"We landed and hit a big bit of camel grass and ended up with the car on its side.

"So, we lost some time for this, but for the rest it was a good stage.

"There was no problem with the car, so that was quite