Guthrie, Ford storm back on Dakar stage 5

The last few days at the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia have been a roller coaster for America's Mitch Guthrie. After his victory on Tuesday, the Ford Raptor T1 driver had a torrid outing on yesterday's stage, dropping some 44 minutes to the leader after having to start the day in front. But he rebounded in the best way on Thursday's 371-km (265-mile) special completing the return leg of the marathon stage to Hail just four seconds behind Ford teammate Nani Roma, and when the Spaniard was hit with a one-minute speeding penalty, Guthrie claimed his second stage win, leading a 1-2-3 sweep for the Raptor squad that was completed by Martin Prokop.

Henk Lategan was confronted with a navigational challenge this morning on the second part of the marathon stage, which he opened the way without the tracks of the motorcycle runners. It was the trickiest task of the week for the South African but, despite losing 12m43s to Guthrie and placing just 16th overall, the Toyota driver hung onto the lead in the overall rankings by 3m17s over Nasser Al Attiyah. The Qatari driver, starting behind Lategan, also lost time in his Dacia, but wasn't too bothered by his 15th-place result today.

“From the beginning, we tried to manage without any mistakes or punctures. I think we did a good job," said Al Attiyah. "Henk Lategan did a really good run and we just stayed behind him – we didn’t really need to pass because it was so risky and the navigation was not really easy. The marathon day is finished and we are quite happy. I don’t know if we have lost time but if it’s around 10 minutes, then no problem.”

The Ford team still looms strongly behind the two leaders, filling out the overall top six with Mattias Ekstrom in third, 5m38s behind the leader, Roma 6m59s down, Carlos Sainz Sr. trailing by 8m33s and Guthrie 16m23s behind.

The positions suggest an open battle for the final special of the week, covering 300 kilometers of dunes. In seventh and eighth position in the overall rankings, the Dacias driven by Lucas Moraes (17m11’s behind) and especially Sebastien Loeb (+17m55s) are also both capable of getting back into the game.

Luciano Benavides set the fastest time among the bikes, climbing for the first time in his career into the top three of the overall rankings, 5m55s behind his leader in the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing team, Daniel Sanders. The Australian regained the rally lead with the third-best time, 5m50s behind his teammate, and the reigning champion may have reaped the rewards of a strategy developed within the KTM clan. He will take starter’s orders on a stage almost entirely made up of dunes in a favorable position with possibly an ally for navigating through the second part of the route.

The special also enabled two other riders to put in their best performances of the week: Nacho Cornejo took second place on his Hero, 3m51s behind Benavides, while Bradley Cox finished 7m22s after the day’s winner in fourth place, equaling his best Dakar stage finish to date.

For Monster Energy Honda HRC, Ricky Brabec is displaying first-class consistency, perhaps to the extent that the American can lay claim to being team leader, following a major blunder by Tosha Schareina. The Spaniard held his own on the tracks but received a 10-minute penalty for forgetting to leave the bivouac-refuge between the flags. This breach of the rules dropped him off the provisional podium into fourth place and he will now have to make up a deficit of a dozen minutes on Sanders to be in with a shout for victory. Adrien Van Beveren, who was already enduring a tough Dakar, hit a new low today after having lost more than half an hour, partially due to a wire that got stuck in his wheel after 88 kilometers.

For KTM, the spectacular start enjoyed by Edgar Canet with victories on the prologue and first stage seem a distant memory after the problems that disrupted his day, beginning with the foam melting on his rear wheel.

In the Stock class, stage 5 was another display of domination by the Defender Rally Team as Rokas Baciuska, Stephane Peterhansel and Sara Price swept home 1-2-3. The Lithuanian's 37s stage win over the Frenchman stretched his overall lead to 44m32s, with Dakar legend Peterhansel now his closest pursuer and Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body's Ronald Basso slipping to third overall ahead of Price.

America's Kyle Chaney took the stage win the SSV class, while countryman Brock Heger maintained his overall lead with a third-place finish behind Chaleco Lopez. Heger, the defending class champ, now enjoys a 37m26 overall buffer to RZR Factory Racing teammate Xavier de Soultrait, with Can-Am driver Chaney now third overall, 56m27s back.