Dakar Cars, Stage 10: Peterhansel leads, drama for Sainz, Al-Attiyah

Peterhansel started the day in second place in the standings, behind Sainz, but the Spaniard's chances vanished when he stopped with mechanical problems near the end of the day.

At the time of writing, the Spaniard was still waiting for assistance.

Al-Attiyah, third at the start of the day, lost over 52 minutes after rolling his X-raid Mini.

The day included a 278-km special, with a mammoth connection of 485km from Belen to La Rioja. The start was slightly delayed because of the rising of a river.

Al-Attiyah's day got off to a poor start when he rolled his Mini less than six km into the stage.

Although he eventually managed to continue, the Qatari lost over 28 minutes to Peterhansel at the first control point.

Peterhansel himself - and also Sainz, and Mikko Hirvonen - dropped time early on after getting lost in the dunes, although that did not stop the Frenchman from emerging as the quickest driver by nearly six minutes at CP1.

Peterhansel also set the pace at the second control point, increasing the gap to his closest pursuer - Cyril Despres - to nearly nine minutes.

Sainz, meanwhile, was 20 minutes slower than his French rival.

But it all came to a sudden end for the Spaniard, who stopped with a broken gearbox casing 213km into the stage.

It is still unclear if the former WRC champion will continue in the event, but he was still waiting for assistance two hours after Peterhansel had finished.

Peterhansel reached the finish in 4h13m32s, beating Peugeot teammate Despres by 5m40s and Toyota's Vladimir Vasilyev by 12m56s.

Mini's Nani Roma finished the stage in fourth, ahead of Sebastien Loeb in the third-fastest Peugeot today.

Today's result leaves the 11-time Dakar winner a full hour clear of Al-Attiyah in the standings with three stages to run.

Giniel de Villiers is third, 1h12m adrift.

Standings after Stage 10:

Pos.	No.	Driver	Car	Time/Gap
1	302	Stephane Peterhansel  Jean-Paul Cottret	Peugeot	32h44m59s
2	300	Nasser Al-Attiyah  Matthieu Baumel	Mini	1h00m00s
3	301	Giniel de Villiers  Dirk von Zitzewitz	Toyota	1h12m31s
4	315	Mikko Hirvonen  Michel Perin	Mini	1h23m51s
5	319	Leeroy Poulter  Robert Howie	Toyota	1h33m58s
6	321	Cyril Despres  David Castera	Peugeot	1h50m05s
7	304	Nani Roma  Alex Haro	Mini	1h50m25s
8	307	Vladimir Vasilyev  Konstantin Zhiltsov	Toyota	1h58m07s
9	314	Sebastien Loeb  Daniel Elena	Peugeot	2h27m31s
10	323	Harry Hunt  Andy Schulz	Mini	2h28m41s