All three SA Toyotas finish in top five

Recovering well after a shaky start, South African driver Giniel de Villiers (right) was pleased with his performance as he played a key role for the Toyota Gazoo Racing SA team on the fifth stage of the Dakar Rally.

While Frenchman Stephane Peterhansel strengthened his grip on the two-week race, all three SA cars finished among the top five yesterday, after working hard on the dunes in Peru.

Dutch driver Bernhard ten Brinke was second fastest over the 268km special stage, though he was nearly five minutes off the pace of Peterhansel, who extended his overall advantage.

De Villiers and German co-driver Dirk von Zitzewitz got stuck shortly after the start of the stage, and they were delayed by a puncture, but they managed to pull it back to clock the third quickest time of the day.

“It wasn’t the start we wanted, but thankfully we didn’t lose too much time today,” De Villiers said.

Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar had trouble with his gearbox and lost 20 minutes, but he clawed back to finish fifth as the Gazoo team continued to apply pressure.

“Luckily the stage was divided into two sections and we were able to catch up with our technical crew in between the sections,” Al-Attiyah said.

Ten Brinke climbed to third place in the general classification, followed by Al-Attiya in fourth and De Villiers in fifth.