Stranded Al-attiyah saved by stewards

QATAR’S 2011 Dakar Rally champion Nasser Al-Attiyah was a relieved man yesterday as, despite getting stuck when torrential rain brought chaos to the eighth stage from Salta to Tucuman, he remained in second place.

Race stewards decided to hand all the cars that were unable to complete the stage the same time as the last competitor who finished before the stage was abandoned.

This revised result keeps the 42year- old Qatari in second place, trailing France’s defending champion, Stephane Peterhansel, by just 3min 14sec, with Giniel de Villiers (also stranded) third and still 44min 03sec off the leader.

The race had been stopped at the 88km mark when a riverbed on the course swelled with water. At that time, Al-Attiyah was 13sec ahead of America’s Robby Gordon with Peterhansel three minutes behind. But as the storms worsened, Al-Attiyah got stuck and then watched several of his rivals disappear into the distance.

Guerlain Chicherit reached the finish in the fastest time with Peterhansel over 12 minutes behind

Al-Attiyah’s car, having been successfully extricated from the quagmire and driven to the stage finish in Tucuman, was to be be given an intensive inspection by the Red Bull mechanics during yesterday’s rest day.

“The stage was going very well for us and we had the lead until the conditions on the stage changed,” said Al-Attiyah. It was raining and lots of water was coming down from the mountains that made the rivers impossible to cross.

“We decided we just had to stop and we called the race organisers to let them know there was no way to cross the river. They told us then that they were in the process of stopping the race. It had been our plan to come to the rest day with the lead, but sometimes we must accept what will be.”

David Casteu took the overall lead in the rain-hit motorcycling section after longtime leader Olivier Pain endured a miserable eighth stage. Joan Barreda Bort claimed the 183km timed run in 2hr 7min 26sec, ahead of America’s Johnny Campbell, who was 7min 4sec behind.

Sarel van Biljon, the only South African in the quad bikes division, overcame torrid conditions to win the eighth stage on Saturday. Van Biljon remained third in the quad standings, two hours behind Argentine leader Marcos Patronelli. – Sapa-AFP