Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah kept a sizable lead going in the Dakar Rally as it enters its second week, as Sebastien Loeb moved back into second place with a stage victory at the start of week two in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, according to Reuters.
The racers had a day of rest today between the two weeks grueling, off-road racing. Week two begins with Al-Attiyah holding a 45 minute lead on Loeb. Al-Attiyah is chasing his fourth Dakar title in the desert dunes.
“The second week of the Dakar is another race… today from the beginning we were not pushing but in the last part we pushed a little bit just to see,” said Al-Attiyah, runner-up last year to French Dakar great Stephane Peterhansel, per Reuters.
“There is no strategy…we’ll do our race, try and attack and see what happens in the end,” he said.
The Dakar Rally has not only been a captivating race-watching experience for fans, it has also had on display cars of the future, powered by clean energy sources. Gaussin exhibited a prototype of its hydrogen-powered car, the H2, which will produce 429 horsepower (320 kW) from an electric motor powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said on Friday that initial results of an investigation into an accident during the Dakar car rally which left one French contestant injured last week showed “no criminal suspicions.”
