Will happen, will not happen? On the makeshift camp set up three hours by bus from the first town and ten minutes by pick-up from the nearest gas station, the question burns on the lips.
At 4:55 p.m., the exact hour from which the competitors were invited to dismount and set up their tent to spend the night before resuming the race where they left off at daybreak, Guerlain Chicherit (Mini ) is the first to finish after nearly seven hours spent opening the track like a galley slave.
Then the cars follow one another to park in single file: the Swede Mattias Ekström, the Saudi Yazeed al-Rajhi (Toyota), virtually the leader at this precise moment, closely followed by the Qatari Nasser al-Attiyah (Dacia), then others still.
Sainz on the roof
And Loeb, in all this? Still not there. According to fragmentary information, the Alsatian encountered electronic problems with his Sandrider which forced him to stop several times.
Here’s Carlos Sainz’s battered Ford parked. A kit car, but moving knowing that the outgoing winner put his Raptor on the roof, losing almost 50 minutes in the convertible.
Broken fans and overheating motor
Loeb ends up joining the camp. When he gets out of his tub, he shows the face of bad days. “It’s a fan problem, identified since July during tests, but apparently not resolved,” he says. What do you want me to tell you? It’s always like that, we have bad luck…”
The malfunction which prevents its engine from cooling due to lack of air is not, however, fatal. Thanks to his teammate Cristina Gutierrez, who sacrificed her race to help him, he ended up being able to start again at full speed.
In the end, his outlay on the leading men was limited to half an hour – 33’33” behind Al-Rajhi – which still kept him in the match. But he will already have to get out of this “48 hours flat” special, knowing that there are 350 km left of the 960 to go –, be spared from the worries and gain time from his rivals.
But this Sunday, as the sun set over the Saudi mountains, Sébastien Loeb rather wanted to throw everything away, convinced of being pursued by the scoumoune on the Dakar who stubbornly refused to accept him.
