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Dakar Rally: Peterhansel crashes out of penultimate 2019 stage

Stephane Peterhansel has retired from the 2019 edition of the Dakar Rally after the 13-time champion crashed on the penultimate stage.

Peterhansel, who entered Wednesday's test in fourth place overall, had an incident shortly after the start of the 312km stage.

His co-driver David Castera, who teamed up with Peterhansel in place of his long-time partner Jean-Paul Cottret for this year's marathon, is reported to have sustained a back injury.

Peterhansel was piloting one of the three X-raid Mini buggies entered into the 2019 event after moving on from Peugeot's disbanded rally-raid programme along with Cyril Despres and Carlos Sainz.

Peterhansel won the first two Dakar stages in the buggy, but after briefly emerging as Nasser Al-Attiyah's main rival for overall victory, he lost minutes in the dunes over the latest few days and dropped outside of the top three.

He was seven minutes behind Nani Roma and Sebastien Loeb in the fight for a podium spot heading into the penultimate day, while fifth-placed Despres was over an hour further adrift.

Peterhansel's premature exit from the rally means he will fail to finish a Dakar for the first time since 2009, the first edition of the event's South American era.

PH Sport Peugeot driver Loeb currently leads the times in the ninth stage, while Al-Attiyah is on course to carry a likely unassailable lead into the final day of the rally.

Zdroj: autosport.com