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Dakar Rally: Toyota's ten Brinke nets stage win, Sainz extends lead

Toyota driver Bernhard ten Brinke topped the 11th stage of the 2018 Dakar Rally, as Carlos Sainz marginally extended his overall lead ahead of Peugeot team-mate Stephane Peterhansel.

Ten Brinke was the pacesetter for most of the day's running en route to wrapping up his second ever Dakar stage win, the first having come in the short opening test in the 2016 marathon.

Peugeot's Cyril Despres was the Dutchman's nearest rival on this occasion, finishing 4m35s off ten Brinke's pace through the 281km timed special of the Belen-Fiambala-Chilecito stage.

Despres' team-mates Sainz and Peterhansel, first and second in the general classification, completed the top four on the day.

The Spaniard had taken the early initiative in their Wednesday battle, and was at one point over three minutes up on Peterhansel's pace, but gave up that advantage towards the end of the stage.

He did beat Peterhansel at the finish, but only added 10 seconds to his lead over the Frenchman.

Former World Rally Championship star Mikko Hirvonen was quickest at the two opening waypoints, and looked in with a chance of giving the all-new X-raid Mini buggy its first stage win.

However, an incident 66 miles into the route put paid to the Finn's challenge, forcing a lengthy stop for repairs.

With more than 600 miles of timed competition left across the three remaining stages, rally leader Sainz is 50m45s up on Peterhansel as the pair chase the honour of scoring Peugeot's farewell victory.

Nasser Al-Attiyah remains best of the rest behind the duo, one hour and 14 minutes down on Sainz.

Zdroj: autosport.com