Nasser Al-Attiyah has retained a healthy Dakar Rally lead despite conceding victory on stage six to closest rival Sebastien Loeb after going astra♚y from his roཧute towards the finish.

The Toyota Gazoo Racing driver has dominated this year’s event so far and holds a 37m 43s lead over Loeb in the privateer Peugeot PH-Sport. Al-Attiyah lost over two minutes to Loeb after heading down the wrong banking, which the Qatari predicts costs him “several minutes”, to hand the st🌳age win to Loeb.

But given Al-Attiyah’s strong timeꦆ advantage in the general classification he remains in a do🌊minant position to take victory, assuming he avoids any mechanical disasters, with only four stages remaining.

Lead X-Raid Mini JCW driver Stephane Peterhansel has held on to third place despite struggling🐼 on the Arequipa to San Juan de Marcona stage but has over four minutes in hand on Nani Roma (X-Raid Team) who got struck in sand close to the stage finish.

In the Moto category, disaster struck for former Dakar Rally winner Sam Sunderland as he dropped from second to seventh place for Red Bull KTM. Having been handed victory on stage five with a time adjustment after helping rival Paulo Goncalves, Sunderland had to le🐈ad out the stage which meant he had🅺 no markers before a rear brake issue plagued his progress.

With leader Pablo Quintanilla securing victory on stage six, the Rockstar Energy Husqvarna rider now holds a 4m 38s lead over Ricky Brabec on the Monster Energ🐼y Honda, with Sunderland’s team-mate Toby Price moving up to third place overall.

The 2019 Dakar Ral🧔ly concludes at the end o💛f stage 10 in Lima on January 17.