Guerlain Chicherit is the new leader of the Dakar in the car category. The French driver from the X-Raid MINI JCW Team was the fastest in the first stage, held this Saturday, in a closely contested race – the top six drivers were separated by less than two minutes.
Chicherit was at the front early on, but he faced strong opposition, particularly from Toyota drivers. In fact, Lucas Moraes was leading at PK330, the final intermediate waypoint.
However, in the closing kilometers, Chicherit emerged victorious, beating Seth Quintero (Toyota) by 50 seconds. Saood Variawa (Toyota) secured third place, followed by Martin Prokop (Orlen Jipocar Team/Ford) and Cristina Gutiérrez (The Dacia Sandriders).
Moraes lost momentum and finished eighth. One of the perennial contenders for top positions, Nasser Al-Attiyah (The Dacia Sandriders), had a tough day, finishing 20th after suffering a puncture.
In the general classification, Chicherit leads with a 50-second advantage over Quintero, while Variawa sits third, 1m03s behind. Prokop is fourth at 1m04s, with Gutiérrez rounding out the top five, 1m28s back.
