Despite the power gain granted to the Audis, Nasser al-Attiyah managed to win Thursday during the 5th stage of the Dakar, which had 373 km of specials. The Qatari driver, very upset with his co-driver Mathieu Baumel after the modification of the regulations, was undoubtedly very motivated and won the great fight with Stéphane Peterhansel (Audi), Sébastien Loeb (BRX) and Carlos Sainz (Audi). Already winner of the 2nd stage and leader of the event, Al-Attiyah set a time of 4h13’23”, 1’57” less than Sainz and 3’44” less than Peterhansel.
The disappointment of the day is once again for Loeb, who was in contention for at least a podium, but rolled off a few km from the finish and lost almost 20 minutes in changing a wheel. He finished the stage 19’58” behind the winner.
In the general classification, Al-Attiyah is doing well since he now has a 22’36” lead over Peterhansel and 27’01” over Yazeed al-Rajhi (Toyota). Sainz is 4th at 34’52”, Loeb is relegated to him at 1h53’41”.