Even when issues acquired slightly uneven, it nonetheless appeared as if the wind was in Yazeed Al Rajhi’s sails on the Dakar’s sixth stage.
He started Saturday with a ten minute and 17 second deficit to rally chief and fellow Toyota Hilux runner Henk Lategan. By the midway level he’d clawed two and a half minutes again, even with a broken wheel.
On the mid-stage neutralisation, one in every of Toyota’s ‘water carriers’ got here to the rescue: stage three winner Saood Variawa donated one in every of his spares to Al Rajhi, who set off on his approach and started mercilessly scything his approach additional into Lategan’s lead.
Within the last 30 kilometres, it appeared there could also be a sudden reprieve: Al Rajhi misplaced two and a half minutes within the dunes. Earlier than that, Lategan’s lead was set to be reduce to beneath 5 minutes. That went as much as 7m16s by the end – but it surely was on objective. Al Rajhi wished to verify he didn’t win the stage and begin first on the street; with no bikes opening the best way on Sunday’s stage, he’d been pondering forward.
