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2024 Dakar Rally: Toyotas seize the day in Stage 3
Toyota is looking to win their third consecutive Dakar Rally even without Nasser Al-Attiyah. While it is only three stages in, they already have some reason to be excited on Monday as Lucas Moraes scored his first career Dakar stage win while Yazeed Al-Rajhi from ally Overdrive Racing now holds the overall lead.
Both drivers beat back Audis for the leads in both as Moraes edged out Mattias Ekström by just nine seconds, while Al-Rajhi finished third behind both of them and Carlos Sainz‘s sixth enabled the former to leapfrog him for the top spot. Although not the first Hilux to win a stage in 2024 as Guillaume de Mévius claimed Stage #1, Moraes’ victory is the inaugural for the Toyota GR DKR Hilux EVO T1U, an upgraded version fielded for him and Seth Quintero by Toyota Gazoo Racing. By comparison, de Mévius and Al-Rajhi race the Hilux Overdrive, a different T1+ model.
“This is an unbelievable feeling. I have to give it up to Armand (Monleón, co-driver) and to the team this victory because the team delivered an amazing car. Armand was perfect today. A good road position,” said Moraes. “I would like to give this win for my daughter because she was in the hospital the last four days, but now she’s better. It was very tough for me as a dad being here, but this win means a lot now.”
Al-Rajhi’s podium moves him past Sainz in the general ranking, though only by twenty-nine seconds. Ekström sits third while Moraes’ win improves him by five positions up to third.
Toyotas ran 1–2–3 in the early stages of the day with Guerlain Chicherit, de Mévius, and Romain Dumas occupying the top spots. Chicherit eventually fell to twenty-sixth due to a disconnected water hose that caused the engine to heat up, while Dumas overtook de Mévius at the halfway point but settled for fifth.
For the second day in a row, Al-Attiyah just missed out on a podium as he was twenty-four seconds back of Al-Rajhi. The now-Prodrive member probably could have sealed the deal if not for three tyre punctures that skinned his left-rear wheel down to its rim.
Twenty-seven kilometres before the finish, Tim and Tom Coronel accidentally collided head-on with Rally2 rider Philippe Gendron, sending the latter onto their Century CR6’s hood. Gendron hurt his leg in the incident but managed to reach the bivouac. Besides a gearbox issue sustained earlier in the day, the CR6 suffered some front damage including a smashed windshield. Their team-mate Michel Kremer and Thomas de Bois also crashed and were airlifted to hospital for back pain.
The Coronels and Al-Attiyah are among many who had to scramble to diagnose and resolve their vehicle troubles. Due to Stages #3 and #4 being under marathon rules, their teams are only allowed to touch the cars for two hours upon completing the Selective Section before they must take them to parc fermé; any further work can only be conducted by the competitors themselves. This forced the Century CR7 of Brian Baragwanath to sit out Monday as well as Tuesday because of a front suspension failure in Stage #2 from the parts becoming brittle in the heat, so he has to wait until new parts arrive from South Africa before rejoining the race; fellow CR7 driver Urvo Männama also did not start the stage for the same reason.
The marathon conditions placed Mason Klein in a big pickle following his Monday misadventure. After his oil line ruptured in Stage #2 which left him stranded for hours until his Kove Moto team-mate Sunier gave him his bike’s parts, the RallyGP rider appeared to bounce back strong the following day as he led much of the stage’s first half. Unfortunately, mechanical gremlins struck again when a rock smashed the chain cover and shifter, also hurting the engine; by the time he arrived at the bivouac in the middle of the night, the bike had started to leak fluid.
“The chain came off and it ripped the mousse off the motor,” commented Klein. “I was really scared because the next time the chain comes off, I don’t have a motor anymore. So I had to go slow because of that.”
Pablo Quintanilla tried to capitalise on Klein’s troubles by winning the stage, but received a speeding penalty as did many others in the class like overall leader Ross Branch. Quintanilla’s six-minute punishment dropped him to seventh while defending Dakar champion Kevin Benavides claimed the stage win by seventy-one seconds over Ricky Brabec; three margin would have been even closer if not for Brabec also getting a one-minute penalty.
Fellow RallyGP competitors Sam Sunderland and Sebastian Bühler retired from the race. Sunderland, the 2022 winner who struggled greatly with bad luck in 2023, suffered a mechanical issue just eleven kilometres into the stage while Bühler crashed at KM 360 and suffered two fractures in his vertebra. Toby Price and Skyler Howes stopped to assist him and received roughly eighteen minutes in time credits.
Twice reigning Quad winner Alexandre Giroud edged out Manuel Andújar for the stage win by eighteen seconds, while third-placed Juraj Varga moves into the overall lead as Marcelo Medeiros struggled to a fourth.
Other shake-ups included Eryk Goczał‘s three-stage Challenger win streak getting snapped when he missed a waypoint and had to turn around to rectify the error. Mitch Guthrie took advantage and beat him by a minute, though Goczał is still atop the standings. Janus van Kasteren‘s sweep in Truck also came to an end as Aleš Loprais won to take the lead. Yasir Seaidan won in SSV; his Can-Am Maverick has a tribute decal to the late co-driver Laurent Lichtleuchter, whose 2023 Dakar driver Akira Miura won the stage in Stock.
Mission 1000 now has its first outright leader as the hydrogen- and HVO-powered KH-7 Ecovergy Team truck of Jordi Juvanteny was faster than the Stage #3 benchmark time, earning him ten bonus points to go with the ten handed out for running the full distance. The finish rate was lower than in the previous two days as just four teams completed all 108.59 kilometres.
Pau Navarro retired from the rally after hurting his wrist in a rollover on Sunday.
Stage #3 winners
| Class | Number | Competitor | Team | Time |
| Ultimate (T1) | 206 | Lucas Moraes | Toyota Gazoo Racing | 4:14:51 |
| Stock (T2) | 501 | Akira Miura* | Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body | 6:01:57 |
| Challenger (T3) | 303 | Mitch Guthrie | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 4:39:08 |
| SSV (T4) | 408 | Yasir Seaidan | MMP Compétition | 4:57:51 |
| Truck (T5) | 602 | Aleš Loprais* | InstaForex Loprais Praga Team | 4:56:41 |
| RallyGP | 47 | Kevin Benavides | Red Bull KTM Factory Racing | 4:39:28 |
| Rally2 | 16 | Romain Dumontier | Team Dumontier Racing | 4:47:04 |
| Quad | 172 | Alexandre Giroud | Drag’on Rally Team | 5:43:34 |
| Classic | 768 | Carlos Santaolalla* | Factory Tub | 49 points |
| Mission 1000 | 1030 | Jordi Juvanteny* | KH7-Ecovergy Team | 20 points |
Leaders after Stage #3
| Class | Number | Competitor | Team | Time |
| Ultimate (T1) | 201 | Yazeed Al-Rajhi | Overdrive Racing | 13:07:29 |
| Stock (T2) | 500 | Akira Miura* | Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body | 19:03:11 |
| Challenger (T3) | 302 | Eryk Goczał | EnergyLandia Rally Team | 14:19:57 |
| SSV (T4) | 402 | Gerard Farrés* | South Racing Can-Am | 15:40:02 |
| Truck (T5) | 602 | Aleš Loprais* | InstaForex Loprais Praga Team | 14:41:13 |
| RallyGP | 46 | Ross Branch | Hero MotoSports | 14:32:51 |
| Rally2 | 16 | Romain Dumontier | Team Dumontier Racing | 15:02:52 |
| Quad | 171 | Juraj Varga | Varga Motorsport | 18:15:21 |
| Classic | 768 | Carlos Santaolalla* | Factory Tub | 141 points |
| Mission 1000 | 1030 | Jordi Juvanteny* | KH7-Ecovergy Team | 40 points |
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