Prodrive Hunter 1-2-3 on Dakar stage puts Loeb third overall

That feels good! To head a Prodrive 1-2-3 is great as I tried really hard in the stage to make a good time. It was very tricky for the navigation in some places meaning we lost some time in two or three places but I think it was tough for everybody because the tracks from the motorbikes were wrong. Overall it’s great to now be up to third place as we head towards the Empty Quarter.

We started with really good speed catching cars and then on the tail of Seb. The car in there was awesome as always, really good but I’m just upset with ourselves as we took a lot of time to find the correct route and back on the right track so maybe we lost eight minutes so a big loss. Then we had a puncture so that was…annoying. That could’ve been a win for us but there’s another day.

Yes, second on the stage! I thought we were having a good day when mid stage we overtook two cars so that was when I though, OK. We started tenth and were overtaking cars well so it was all going in the right direction. We had a big scare through one particular wadi (water) though as we decided to go straight through it but we almost got stuck as there was a lot of water; you couldn’t see anything there was so much water. I pushed on but there were also some spectator cars in there too so I thought if we stop, we’re stuck too!

What a fantastic day as it shows again just how much this Dakar can change with a 1-2-3 finish with all three cars in one piece with us just going day by day trying to make up the difference to the top after the little troubles we had last week with the punctures. It’s not over yet so we’ll keep pushing with Seb up to third and five stages to go.