Rallying-Sainz says his Dakar defence is over as Lategan leads
:Carlos Sainz wrote off his chances of defending the Dakar Rally title on Monday after ending the 48-hour second stage in Saudi Arabia more than an hour and half behind new leader Henk Lategan.
The 62-year-old Spaniard flipped his Ford Raptor onto its roof in the desert dunes on Sunday and then lost more time when the stage resumed on Monday with a puncture and problems in finding the route.
The father of Formula One driver Carlos Sainz Jr. ended the day 20th overall.
"There's a still a long way to go but clearly my chances of winning have disappeared," the four-times Dakar winner told reporters, saying everything had gone wrong.
"If I can help the team, if I can learn and test some things then so much the better."
The two-week rally ends on Jan. 17.
Saudi Arabia's Yazeed Al-Rajhi won the 967km Chrono stage, despite a two minute penalty for speeding, in a non-works Toyota and was second overall behind South African Lategan, who drives for the factory Toyota team.
Qatar's five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah, in third place for Dacia, picked up a four-minute penalty for the same offence as Al-Rajhi.
That left Lategan and co-driver Brett Cummings, winners of Friday's prologue to the two-week event, four minutes and 45 seconds clear.
"Towards the end of the really long dunes section, I got sick, had to stop and get out of the car for a bit," said Lategan, who took over at the top from American teammate Seth Quintero.
"After the dunes cleared, I started enjoying it a bit again.
"It’s actually a big surprise to be first because we haven’t been really focusing on it. But I’m happy with that. We’ve been playing a more strategic game over these two days."
Australian Toby Price and Britain's Sam Sunderland, both double winners in the