Stephane Peterhansel led a Peugeot lockout of the top three places on stage four of the Dakar Rally, while Sebastien Loeb retained his lead in the overall standings.
Dakar legend Peterhansel made a flying start to the 266-mile Juy Juy stage, passing the first checkpoint more than one minute faster than Loeb and 2015 winner Nasser Al-Attiyah, who were tied on the same time at that point.
While Al-Attiyah’s Mini soon fell further adrift, Loeb fought back, getting the gap down to 39 seconds by the third checkpoint, finishing the stage having lost just 27 seconds to his team-mate to lead the event by 4m48s.
“We had a good stage, with no mistakes and a good pace from the beginning,” said Peterhansel.
“We aren’t too proud yet because we know we were not able to carry out all the tests we wanted [pre-event] and it’s just the third day of racing.
“But our work is paying off. Our engines have been fine-tuned to work much better at altitude this year.
“That helps us to drive the car, and everything is well-balanced.”
However, the rally’s top two were split by their Peugeot team-mate Carlos Sainz, who starred after losing three minutes replacing a flat tyre early in the stage to outpace his fellow World Rally champion by 16 seconds.
That put Sainz second on the day, 11 seconds behind Peterhansel, as he continues to fight back from the engine trouble that cost him more than 10 minutes on stage two.
Sainz’s performance moved him up to fifth in the overall standings, 13m04s adrift of Loeb.
Al-Attiyah managed to prevent Peugeot’s four cars locking out the top of the order by finishing the stage fourth-fastest, nearly five minutes off the pace, edging out the 2008 DKR of Cyril Despres.
“I did my best to attack, but you just can’t keep up with the Peugeots,” said Al-Attiyah.
“I tried, but there was no way I could follow Seb. His car is really fast.”
The Qatari driver currently holds third overall, 11m09s behind Loeb and more than one minute clear of Leeroy Poulter’s Toyota in fourth.
Poulter moved up the order by outpacing fellow South African Giniel de Villiers and Loeb’s ex-WRC rival Mikko Hirvonen, who both fell down the leaderboard on Wednesday.
De Villiers, who was second overall heading into the stage, lost more than eight minutes to the Peugeots as he slipped to sixth overall, while Hirvonen was 10m17s off the pace, dropping him from fourth to seventh in the standings.
