Rallying - Dakar Rally - Stage 7 - Al Duwadimi to Al Duwadimi - Saudi Arabia - January 12, 2025 IMT Evo Toyota Gazoo Racing's Henk Lategan after the stage in the bivouac REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
SAUDI ARABIA (Reuters) - Toyota's Henk Lategan dominated stage eight of the Dakar Rally on Monday, and despite a speed violation, the win extended his overall lead after the previous day's chaotic race had virtually wiped out his advantage over closest rival Yazeed Al-Rajhi.
Dakar Rally organisers were forced to erase any gains or losses for a 20km stretch during Sunday's stage over a road book note error, and Lategan's lead had been cut to 21 seconds.
Lategan bounced back, triumphing on the 487km special from Al Duwadimi to Riyadh, with Al-Rajhi down in sixth, coming in five minutes and 20 seconds behind the South African, with the local driver now five minutes and 41 seconds adrift overall.
The stage winner received a two-minute penalty for speeding during a control zone, but Lategan still finished one minute and 47 seconds ahead of fellow-South African and team mate Guy Botterill who had pushed the leader for long parts of the stage.
Lategan and co-driver Brett Cummings, who also won the prologue, have led the race since stage two, and the pair have four stages left, with Tuesday taking the drivers from Riyadh to Haradh.
In the motorcycle category, Argentina's Luciano Benavides won the stage ahead of Adrien Van Beveren, after the pair were re-credited with the time they spent assisting Pablo Quintanilla after his fall during the stage, which forced him to withdraw.
This dropped Tosha Schareina down to third on the stage, but the Spaniard did gain some time on the overall leader Daniel Sanders who finished seventh.
Schareina cut over four minutes off the gap to Australian Sanders, of Red Bull KTM, but he still holds a lead of 11 minutes and three seconds, with Frenchman Van Beveren third overall.
"It was very, very trick at the beginning and I lost a lot of time early on," Sanders said.
"After that, I got into a really good rhythm and the navigation was easier but you had to be really switched on because we lost so much time at the beginning."
(Reporting by Trevor Stynes, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
