Orlando Terranova of the Prodrive-run Bahrain team won the sixth stage of the 2022 Dakar Rally as his teammate Sebastien Loeb finished 30th after getting lost, while Nasser Al-Attiyah increased his overall lead despite finishing 10th.
Over the course of the 348km special near Riyadh, the lead rotated several times between Audi driver Carlos Sainz, Toyota driver Yazeed Al Rajhi, and Al-Attiyah in the opening stages.
However, it was Terranova, Prodrive’s third driver, who finished the day fastest, winning his first Dakar stage win since 2015 by just over a minute over Audi competitor Mattias Ekstrom.
After trailing Al-Attiyah by 28 seconds at the halfway point of 221 kilometers, the Argentine driver took the lead when the factory Toyota driver unexpectedly fell off the pace in the final 127 kilometers to the finish line.
Due to Al Attiyah’s issues, Mattias Ekstrom, a two-time DTM winner, moved up to second, scoring his best-ever stage finish in the electric Audi RS Q e-tron. Al Rajhi finished third, just 1 minute and 49 seconds behind Terranova, whereas Century’s Brian Baragwanath finished fourth.
Nani Roma, the 2014 Dakar Rally winner, finished fifth for Prodrive after a rough final few days in the Dakar, after a roll on Stage 4 that put him out of contention for overall victory. Although Terranova won the stage and Roma placed fifth, his teammate Sebastien Loeb lost 25 minutes after taking the wrong route during the stage.
Despite Loeb recovering some time later in the stage, he finished 28th, putting a stop to his aspirations of winning the Dakar for the first time. Al-Attiyah took advantage of Loeb’s troubles to extend his lead in the standings to 50 minutes despite finishing 10th, his worst stage finish in Dakar 2022.
Following the completion of the first half of the 2022 Dakar rally, Sebastien Loeb has dropped six seconds behind top Overdrive Toyota of Al Rajhi in third place. Lucio Alvarez, Al Rajhi’s teammate, is fourth, with Jakub Przygonski rounding out the top five for X-raid Mini.
In the overall standings, Ekstrom is currently Audi’s highest-placed driver in 13th, almost half an hour away from a top-ten finish. Carlos Sainz dropped down to 21st place after another challenging stage in which he finished over 40 minutes behind the leaders,
