Peterhansel leads in Dakar Rally

LA PAZ. — Defending champion Stephane Peterhansel led the Dakar Rally into Bolivia on Thursday, but Peugeot teammate Carlos Sainz trimmed the Frenchman’s lead with his first stage win of this year’s event.

Peterhansel ended the sixth stage from the Peruvian city of Arequipa to La Paz with a 27- minute advantage over the Spaniard, a two-times world rally champion and father of the Formula One driver with the same name.

Sainz beat Peterhansel by four minutes and six seconds in the 313km stage, split into two sections with a 238km neutralised stint to the shores of Lake Titicaca and the Bolivian Altiplano.

The first 118km section of the stage ended at an altitude of 4,722 metres.

Toyota’s Dutch driver Bernhard Ten Brinke was third but falling further back and more than an hour and 20 minutes behind.