Rally Dakar 2019: Attiyah at the top of the first stage

Following the failure of the rally in several countries in recent years, especially since the rally in South America, Peru will host all stages of the most difficult rally in the world for 10 difficult and stressful days.

Despite the delay in the start of today's 84km, which is of course the shortest of all the other special stages, the Annabi rider kept his freshest record in the fastest time and beat the winner of Carlos Sainz " refugee "last year X-Ride Mini" after the withdrawal of Peugeot from the competition.

The competitors left today from Lima, the Peruvian capital, to reach the final point identified in the small town of Pisco, 9 meters above sea level.

But the victory of the day is not considered "essential" or "important" for many – no driver in Dakar won the title after winning the first stage. It must be remembered that the cars will open the tracks tomorrow in front of the motorcycles, which means that the "navigation" will be more important than ever with many dunes of sand without mercy.

Al Attiyah clocked the fastest time in 1 hour, 1 minute and 41 seconds, beating Sainz two minutes later by minibus, while Polish driver Jakob Przegonski was third in the Mini.

"It was a short rally debut, but it's very difficult, the car is very impressive, everything has worked well, I'm happy, we'll see what we can do," Attiyah said.

We recall that Jacob, nicknamed "Cuba", first participated in the category of motorcycles before moving to the category of cars in 2016.

What's interesting is that Al Attiya and Sainz are looking for their third victory in Dakar (Sainz won in 2010 and 2018 and Al-Attiyah in 2011 and 2015).

Vladimir Vbadiliev, who returned to Dakar after losing the competition in the last two years, finished fourth.

Saudi driver Yazeed Al Rajhi was able to finish the first leg in fifth place in his fifth participation in the world race. Saudi Arabia won the Kazakhstan Rally and the Silk Road last year with the MINI team.

Gennelle de Villiers scored the sixth goal in the second minute, 40 seconds behind Al-Attiyah. He was 17 seconds ahead of the driver Stephan Petrancel, who has 13 titles in his group (6 motorbikes and 7 cars).

Toyota also took part in the top 10 with Dutch driver Bernhard Tin Brinke who finished eighth, beating Harry Hunt and Cyril Deppre.

The competitions will end on Tuesday with the second phase of 342 km.

Organize the top ten with the end of the first stage