Dakar Rally
After the breakup with Nasser Al-Attiyah, Mathieu Baumel breaks the silence: “We have to think about the future”
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Rally-Raid
Loeb now 3rd overall: “We followed the tracks of the motorcycles like idiots”
The BRX Hunter T1+ is fast on the 2022 Dakar but the small mistakes keep coming for Loeb-Lurquin. © Red Bull Content Pool
When it's time to turn off towards the bivouac in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) to spend the rest day of the Dakar 2022, Sébastien Loeb (BRX) took stock of a mixed first week.
Certainly, the Alsatian, navigated by Fabian Lurquin, recorded his 15th stage victory in the rally-raid and joined Bruno Saby and Jean-Louis Schlesser on the list of winners, but the nine-time world rally champion (WRC) also had a series of disappointments. So much so that after this sixth special, he is no longer second in the general classification, but third just behind Yazeed Al-Rajhi-Michael Orr (Toyota) for a handful of seconds!
“We missed a good opportunity to score a hit today (Friday), he admits. We were going ahead (Al-Attiyah-Baumel) on the track. We made two navigation errors which cost us a lot of time. Fortunately, in the dunes we managed to catch up with the peloton in front of us to limit the damage, but we still took 15 minutes through Nasser. »
Sébastien Loeb details this somewhat difficult stage, which was taken by the bikers the day before. “We followed in the footsteps but we went too far in this mistake. In addition, we knew at that point that the motorcycles had had difficulty, but we followed the tracks like idiots and we were stubborn. This is what puts us 'in'. We lost 15 minutes there, then another 7 or 8 minutes later. »
With 50 minutes in sight, the leader of the Bahrain Raid Xtreme team managed by Prodrive is in a delicate position if he finally wishes to add the Dakar to his rich record. “We are starting to find ourselves a little far away. Of course I would have liked to be a little closer during the rest day but there is still a complicated week to negotiate. »
From Sunday, Sébastien Loeb will “try to attack, roll”. “We see that we are faster at the end of the special in the dunes and the sand. I'm hoping that the second week will offer some sand to reverse the trend but for now, there's not much more I can do. »
Medhi Casaurang
Passionate about the history of motorsport across all disciplines, I learned to read thanks to AUTOhebdo. At least that's what my parents tell everyone when they see my name inside!
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VINCENT PREVOST
07/01/2022 at 07:32 a.m.
I know a Monegasque who must be laughing!!!
DANIEL MEYERS
07/01/2022 at 11:52 a.m.
So there, my arms are falling, I thought I understood that it was because of Elena the navigation errors!!!