Dakar 2021: Al Attiyah reduces Peterhansel's lead after winning penultimate stage

Nasser Al Attiyah has been doing all he can to close the gap with Stephane Peterhansel. Image: Red Bull Content Pool

Bengaluru, January 15: Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah was able to take a further two minutes out of Stephane Peterhansel's lead after winning the penultimate stage of Dakar Rally 2021.

But with just one stage remaining in the rally behing held in the deserts and dunes of Saudi Arabia, Peterhansel is protecting a handy 15min, 05sec advantage at the front and is just 255km of racing away from a record 14th Dakar victory (six on a bike and seven in a car, so far).

Qatari ace Al Attiyah, who started Dakar 2021 with a bang by prevailing in the prologue, has now won six stages in all.

"I'm really happy to be here on day 11 without any technical problems with the car," said the three-time champion who has Frenchman Matthieu Baumel as his co-driver.

Peterhansel has held first place since stage two and Al Attiyah has been in second since stage three. Al Attiyah has been doing all he can to close the gap to Monsieur Dakar and he will have one final attempt to capture first place on Friday (January 15).

"There's still one stage to go and we will see what the next day brings," added Al Attiyah.

With the Dakar 2021 journey coming to an end, Peterhansel hopes that he could hold on to the lead.

"In the middle of the dunes there were rocks, it wasn't easy to anticipate. Only one day to go now so we cross our fingers and hope that we can finish in first place," said the Frenchman.

The final spot on the podium belongs to defending champion Carlos Sainz who leads fourth place Kuba Przygonski by close to 90 minutes.

Sainz got an extra blast of desert sun today when the roof of his MINI Buggy was removed during the stage.

Giniel de Villiers was slowed by bent steering while Cyril Despres' strong second week continued with another Top 5 stage result on day 11.

Friday's stage 12 will see the convoy battle across 225km of special stage from Yanbu to Jeddah where this year's edition will finish on the shore of the Red Sea.