Loeb leads Bahrain Red Extreme to victory in the third stage of the Dakar Rally

Sebastien Loeb strengthened his challenge to claim his first Dakar Rally title with a historic victory on the third day of the Bahrain Red Extreme stage in Saudi Arabia.

The nine-time World Rally Champion, along with his co-driver Fabian Lorkin, drove one of Bahrain's Red Extreme team's three (Prodrive Hunter) cars and was the fastest on the 338-kilometre third stage of the forty-fourth day of the Dakar Rally, which stretched from Hail to Artawiya, ahead of Qatari rally leader Nasser Al-Attiyah. A difference of 3 minutes and 28 seconds.

With this result, Sebastien Loeb reduced the lead of Al-Attiyah and his co-driver Matteo Baumel for the rally in a Toyota Hilux to 9 minutes and 16 seconds before the start of tomorrow's special stage of 255 km from Artawiya to Qaisumah.

The victory on the first stage of the Bahrain Red Extreme team in the Dakar Rally came after 3 hours and 25 minutes of hard driving through the northern part of Saudi Arabia.

Sebastian's victory at a stage in the Dakar Rally is the first in history to be achieved by a car using sustainable fuels, as the Hunter car uses Prodrive EcoPower fuel made from agricultural waste that reduces CO2 emissions by 80%.

The team's driver in Hunter's second car, Nani Roma, also consolidated his lead and finished fifth in the stage that took place among the huge sand dunes and came into the top ten in the world's largest and most demanding motorsports event, which covers 8,375 km and runs for two weeks.

Orlando Terranova with Dani Oliveiras in the third team car finished thirteenth.

"It was a real fight where Nasser was pushing really hard on the sand while he was opening the way in the lead and really fast," Loeb said after the stage.

We pressed really hard like we were in a 340km World Rally Championship, so it was really exciting and challenging, but we got a great result in the end.”

“Towards the end of the stage, Nasser and I were driving together through the dunes, but then there were a lot of stones.

I tried to drive so I could choose the track and try to avoid a puncture so we could finish the stage safely, but my car got two punctures like yesterday.”

He concluded, “There was no great navigational difficulty today as the path was really clear for Fabian's assistants.

It's a fantastic result for Team Bahrain Red Extreme and proof of the benefits of sustainable fuels for such long-term events.

After a tremendous amount of work by many experts and technicians over several months, we are proud to win the first stage for the team.”

Gus Petelli, Team Principal Bahrain Red Extreme, said: "It was a fantastic day winning the team's first stage thanks to Sebastian and Fabian, who enjoyed such a fantastic pace along the challenging 340km track."

"It is a very big task to beat Nasser Al-Attiyah in such terrain of sand dunes.

We are very happy that there are no major problems with our cars and that is the main thing, but we are well aware that we still have 11 challenging days ahead.”

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