Sébastien Loeb and Fabian Lurquin (Hunter) won the ninth Dakar stage among the cars. For the duo it is their fourth victory in this Dakar. Sébastien Loeb increases his total number of stage wins in the Dakar to 27 and thus comes within two stage wins of Jacky Ickx, who won 29 Dakar stages during his career.
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Lurquin had announced on Monday evening that he and Loeb would attack again on Tuesday. The Belgian kept his word. “We started tenth and quickly closed in on the other riders. The first 130 km were fast, but quite uneventful. Afterwards it became a little more difficult, although the navigation was not too bad. There were enough tracks of other drivers that navigation was not really a problem.”
After the sandy approach, a stone slope followed. “There were whoppers of boulders and then you know that you can have a puncture. And that happened. Twice. The result was that we no longer had a spare wheel and there was no one close enough to assist us if we had another puncture. Then we drove to the finish with clenched buttocks. We want to keep our chances of finishing ahead of Carlos Sainz good, so we pushed a little, but not too much because you don’t want to risk second place. All’s well that ends well. Tire luck was on our side today. The tires held up and so we won the fourth stage.”
The result is that Lurquin and Loeb have to be the first car to leave on Wednesday with Sainz in their wake. “I don’t like that a little less because we then have to create a trail. Sainz’s teammates start a little further away. So if he had a problem, we could run out again and make up time. It could be a very interesting ride.”