Lategan’s daring drive secures stage win in Dakar Rally and Schareina goes back to back
ALULA, Saudi Arabia (AP) — South African driver Henk Lategan crushed the first half of the marathon stage out of AlUla in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday.
Lategan, last year’s runner-up, celebrated his fifth career Dakar stage win after leading the 452-kilometer special with sandy canyons and stony plateaus from the 57-kilometer time check.
He started 23rd in the morning and his Toyota overtook 11 cars. He built a lead of 8 1/2 minutes and eventually won after nearly five hours by a massive seven minutes over Nasser Al-Attiyah’s Dacia.
Five-time champion Al-Attiyah also moved to second overall behind Lategan, 3:55 behind. The only other driver within 13 minutes of the leader in the general standings was Ford’s Mattias Ekström.
Lategan became the fourth different leader in four days in the general standings — not seen on the Dakar since 2014 — but will jeopardize that when he has to open the way in the second half of the marathon stage on Thursday, heading east to Ha’il.
Mitch Guthrie, Tuesday’s stage winner and first-time Dakar leader, showed the pitfalls of opening the way when the American finished 44 minutes behind Lategan on stage four.
All racers have reached a barebones bivouac without service help from their teams. But drivers can help each other. Lategan was grateful to have protected all of his tires for the marathon finish on Thursday.
Lategan said he’d had nine punctures since the race began on Saturday but chose to gamble on Wednesday on taking on the savage rocky sections.
“I decided to forget about everything and just go,” he said. “We got through the rocks okay and thought we can start pushing and we had a nice push all day.
“It’s not like you hit a big stone and get a puncture. These things are like razor blades. They’re big, flat sharp rocks. So unpredictable, like Russian roulette.”
Stage four was also memorable for the Goczals in their Toyotas. Marek was third, his son Eryk was fourth, and his brother Michal was sixth. They were within five minutes of each other.
It was the end, however, for defending champion Yazeed Al-Rajhi, whose Toyota broke down about halfway through. He started the day in 19th place and 30 minutes down.
Tosha Schareina won back-to-back motorbike stages, using time bonuses from opening the 417-kilometer trail to beat Ricky Brabec by six seconds after 4 1/2 hours. They rode together for the last 200 kilometers.
Brabec is the only rider to have stood on every stage podium so far.
Skyler Howes was just 10 seconds behind for a Honda 1-2-3. Ross Branch’s Hero was 16 seconds back.
Defending champion Daniel Sanders was fifth and was replaced atop the general rankings by Schareina and Brabec but only 84 seconds behind. Nobody else was within 11 minutes of them.
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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing