2021 Dakar Stage 2 took place earlier today. Click here to read our report on Stage 1. Today was the first foray into the dunes after the rocky sections of the opening stage. 2021 Dakar Stage 2 stage took place between the end point of Stage 1, Bisha and Wadi Ad-Dawasir. Competitors had a 228 km road section to complete before racing over the 457 km of timed special stage.

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It was the Mini teammates, Carlos Sainz and Stephane Peterhansel who once again set the early pace. Stage 1 winner Sainz was passed by his French colleague early in the stage. While the two-wheel-drive Minis got to grips with the sandy conditions, it was Nasser Al-Attiyah in a 4×4 Toyota Hilux who was flying through the stage.

The hard-charging Qatari is adept at reading and driving in the sandy conditions and soon overhauled Sainz and early leader Peterhansel. Al-Attiyah grabbed the stage lead and didn’t look back. After starting in tenth position, Al-Attiyah won stage two by 2 min 35 sec in front of Stéphane Peterhansel. The Frenchman gained almost 7 minutes gained on Carlos Sainz (who finished third) as well as, more importantly, the lead in the general standings. Al-Attiyah jumped from 10th to third in the overall classification, just 10 min off the leader.

Said the three times winner of the Dakar, Al-Attiyah: “It was a good day, but I don’t know how much we have won back from Carlos or from Stéphane, you know. It looks like we’ve won the stage but I don’t know by how much. Yesterday we lost a lot of time because we opened the way and it was not really good for us and we didn’t take risks. But today we went flat out and everything is working very, very well. The tyres were amazing and the car too, the pace from start to finish, no mistakes at all, Matthew did a good job… I’m quite happy and we’ll see: there’s still a long way, but it’s a good start”.

Sebastien Loeb in the BRX Hunter clawed his way up to 7th overall after a forgettable opening stage. From the South African contingent, it was Brian Baragwanath in his Century buggy who had a great day by finishing 7th on the stage and now lies 8th overall. Toyota’s Giniel de Villiers finished 25th on 2021 Dakar Stage 2 and now lies 18th on the GC.

Check out some video highlights from the 2021 Dakar Stage 2 at the bottom of this post.

  1. Stephane Peterhansel Mini                      7 hours 17 min 18 sec
  2. Carlos Sainz                Mini                      +6 min 37 sec
  3. Nasser Al-Attiyah Toyota                 +9 min 14 sec
  4. Mathieu Serradori Century                14 min 21 sec
  5. Jakub Przygonski Toyota                 24 min 27 sec
  6. Yazeed Al-Rajhi Toyota                 27 min 32 sec
  7. Sebastien Loeb BRX                       36 min 40 sec
  8. Brian Baragwanath Century                37 min 51 sec
  9. Bernhard Ten Brinke Toyota                 41 min 49 sec
  10. Nani Roma                BRX                       41 min 55 sec