Riyadh (Al Ittihad)
Sebastien Loeb has racked up a slew of titles in his rallying career and now has a new title as Master of the Empty Quarter, after winning his fifth consecutive Dakar Rally stages for the Bahrain Red Extreme Team in Saudi Arabia.
He consolidated his victory today with the twelfth stage of 185 km, which stretched across some of the most amazing and challenging desert terrain on earth, with Loeb and Fabien Lorquin occupying second place in the Dakar Rally in the Bahrain Red Extreme Prodrive Hunter two days before the end of the rally.
As in the first part of the Shaybah Marathon stage yesterday, which he won despite stopping to change a wheel, the nine-time World Rally Champion dominated the stage from start to finish as he returned to the night camp with a lead of 3 minutes and 19 seconds ahead of Matthias Ekstrom in an Audi.
Loeb has so far won half of the 12 stages of this year’s Dakar Rally. Teammates Gerlaine Checheret and Alex Winock, who won the seventh stage of the rally in a Prodrive Hunter, set the fourth fastest time of the day.
Today, Loeb started from third place in the stage behind a Toyota car, driven by Brazilian driver Lucas Moraes, with a difference of 9 minutes and 37 seconds. Loeb finished the stage ahead of Morais by just over two minutes, as he drove his Prodrive Hunter in a wonderful way to take second place in a row in the overall standings. in the Dakar Rally.
In the stage, Nasser Al-Attiyah recorded the third fastest time in his Toyota, achieving an overall lead of 1 hour, 27 minutes and 10 seconds. But after his previous misfortune, Loeb once again consolidated his lead in the FIA World Cup Championship standings, picking up more stage points, as well as the stage-winners standings.
