Audi’s Stephane Peterhansel won the tenth stage of the 2022 Dakar Rally on Wednesday ahead of Carlos Sainz in the sister car.
Stephane Peterhansel ran second to team-mate Carlos Sainz earlier on in the 375km race near Wadi Ad Dawasir, before taking the lead at the third waypoint in Stage 10 which was one of the fastest stages of rally. The French driver marked the third stage win for Audi.
The 14-time Dakar winner progressively increased his lead over the field, finally winning Stage 10 by 2 minutes and 6 seconds over teammate Carlos Sainz. Following Sainz’s victory on the third test and Ekstrom’s Stage 8 win on Monday, this was Peterhansel’s first stage victory in Dakar 2022, ensuring that all three Audi drivers have now won a stage this year.
After finishing third, Prodrive (Bahrain Raid Xtreme) driver Orlando Terranova was the closest competitor to the leading two Audis. It was a remarkable finish, as he overtook Henk Lategan’s Toyota right before the finish line to achieve his best result since winning Stage 6 last week.
Henk Lategan finished 12 seconds behind Terranova after leading for much of the day, but he gave the Toyota’s best finish, as Al Attiyah came in seventh and Wednesday’s Stage 9 winner Giniel de Villiers was down in 12th.
Nine-time World Rally Champion, Sebastien Loeb in his Prodrive entry finished fifth, just 1m35s and two places ahead of his championship rival Al Attiyah. Mattias Ekstrom finished a disappointing 11th, over 10 minutes behind his winning team-mate Peterhansel despite securing his first Dakar stage victory on Tuesday.
Going into the final two stages towards Bisha and Jeddah, Al-Attiyah has a reduced lead of 32m40s ahead of Prodrive’s Sebastien Loeb in the overall standings. This comes after a five-minute penalty was imposed on the Qatari driver for a seat belt violation that was reported in Stage 8 on Monday but the issue was not addressed until the onset of Stage 9 on Tuesday.
2022 Dakar Rally Overall classification after Stage 10
| Pos. | #. | Name | Mark | Time | Gap | Penalty |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 201 | Nasser Al Attiyah | TOYOTA | 33:13:37 | 00:05:00 | |
| 2 | 211 | Sebastien Loeb | PRODRIVE | 33:46:17 | +00:32:40 | 00:00:00 |
| 3 | 205 | Yazeed Al Rajhi | TOYOTA | 34:09:25 | +00:55:48 | 00:00:35 |
| 4 | 221 | Orlando Terranova | PRODRIVE | 34:42:55 | +01:29:18 | 00:12:00 |
| 5 | 207 | Jakub Przygonski | MINI | 34:59:19 | +01:45:42 | 00:05:00 |
| 6 | 212 | Giniel de Villiers | TOYOTA | 35:44:00 | +02:30:23 | 00:15:00 |
| 7 | 224 | Vladimir Vasilyev | BMW | 35:56:23 | +02:42:46 | 00:17:00 |
| 8 | 202 | Sebastian Halpern | MINI | 36:58:17 | +03:44:40 | 00:17:00 |
| 9 | 230 | Mathieu Serradori | CENTURY | 36:58:48 | +03:45:11 | 00:19:00 |
| 10 | 217 | Mattias Ekstrom | AUDI | 37:57:45 | +04:44:08 | 00:17:00 |
