Loeb wins KSA Dakar Rally stage after Sainz penalty for speeding

RIYADH: Sebastien Loeb won his second stage of the week in the Dakar Rally after Carlos Sainz was penalized for speeding on Sunday.

Nasser Al-Attiyah was bumped up to second after the 346-kilometer special in Saudi Arabia between Al-Duwadimi east to the capital Riyadh, and retained overall control with an hour-plus lead.

Mason Klein was demoted from the motorbikes lead after his own penalty for speeding. Fellow American Skyler Howes regained the lead, and Klein was tied for second with Kevin Benavides, just over a minute behind.

Three-time champion Sainz fell out of title running when he crashed on Friday and abandoned the stage. A 29-hour penalty was added to by a three-hour delay on Saturday when he stopped to give Marias Ekstrom his suspension.

He didn’t have to stop on Sunday, timing first from the second checkpoint on and beating Loeb by 1 1/2 minutes. But Sainz was caught doing more than 40 kph in a 30 kph zone and penalized five minutes. Loeb was given the stage win, the 18th of his career, Al-Attiyah was promoted to second, and Sainz relegated to third.

“Finally, we got to enjoy ourselves a little bit and get a clear run,” Sainz said. “Starting so far behind, we had no dust, thanks to the rain.”

In regard to falling out of title contention, he said, “I liked it much better before in the Dakar. When a priority driver got a problem, you were immediately put in the top 15. It’s not good for us, not good for the others. I’m very disappointed at all the problems we got. The whole team was not very lucky. We’ve been unlucky, but we’ll keep attacking and enjoying the race.”

Defending champion Al-Attiyah will go into the rest day leading by 63 minutes over Toyota teammate Henk Lategan. Brazilian rookie Lucas