Aurélien Canot, Media365, published on Monday January 6, 2025 at 11:10 a.m.
Unlucky the day before on the first part of the “48 hours” stage of this Dakar, Sébastien Loeb limited the damage this Monday on the second part by gaining eighteen minutes from the leaders. The Alsatian thus finds 6th place in a ranking now dominated by Hank Lategan. Among the motorcycles, Daniel Sanders consolidated his first place at the end of a stage that Adrien Van Beveren finished in 2nd place.
Sébastien Loeb limits the damage and gets back on track. After his misfortunes the day before, the nine-time WRC world champion still in search of a first coronation on the Dakar could fear the worst when setting off to finish with this second marathon stage of 48 hours scheduled in two parts on two days, the second of which is this Monday. In the back of his mind, the Alsatian who had preferred to put things into perspective and joke about his bad luck, Sunday after having finished with this first part, nevertheless had to tell himself that he could hardly have had a worse misfortune. If so, Loeb did well to be optimistic. On Monday, the unfortunate man of the day before, with repeated fan problems on his Dacia Sandrider which had caused him to lose more than half an hour on the best, in fact limited the damage by gaining eighteen minutes from the leaders and returning to 6th place in the general classification, a little less than 19 minutes (18'56) behind Henk Lategan, who came 3rd behind Yazeed Al Rajhi and Nasser Al Attiyah.
Van Beveren shows up, Sanders flies away
Loeb, like the day before after finally being able to return to the track, did not experience any fan problems this time and he took the opportunity to make up more than half of his delay, to his greatest pleasure. “Today (Monday), we couldn't do better”, appreciated the experienced French pilot in comments which contrasted categorically with those of the day before, especially since the person concerned has not lost all hope. “We remain in the match”, he noted, while on the words side, his compatriot Adrien Van Beveren also had a most satisfactory day. Arriving 2nd on Monday, the Northerner settled like Loeb in 6th place overall. However, there is nothing to hope for at the moment against an insatiable Daniels Sanders. Winner of his third stage in a row, the Australian became the first driver since Joan Barreda in 2017 to achieve this pass of three. In general, for the moment there is Sanders, who is flying away, and the others.
