The gruelling Dakar Rally 2021 continued with stage four (out of a total of 12) taking place that covered a distance of 813km from Wadi Ad-Dawasir to Riyadh. This stage saw some close fights in multiple categories as well as an unfortunate exit of a veteran Indian rider from the prestigious rally. Here’s everything that transpired. It was a mixed bag of results for the Hero MotoSports squad in the bikes category. Its high-point of the stage came with a strong 6th place finish for Joaquim Rodrigues and 24th for Sebastian Buhler. Unfortunately, CS Santosh’s Dakar 2021 journey came to an end after crashing mid-way through stage four. Thankfully, when paramedics arrived at the scene, Santosh was said to be awake and stable and has been shifted to a hospital in Riyadh. Harith Noah continues to be the top Indian rider in finishing 68th with Ashish Raorane making further progress by finishing 75th. This leaves top Hero MotoSports rider Rodrigues 16th overall, with Buhler 24th, Harith Noah in 36th and Ashish Raorane in 80th position. The cars category had an intensely contested stage with the top four being separated by only one minute at one point. When the dust settled, it was Toyota’s Nasser Al-Attiyah taking his third consecutive stage win by just 11 seconds over Stephane Peterhansel (X-Raid Mini JCW). His teammate Henk Lategan completed the podium. Stephane Peterhansel continues to lead the overall standings, with Nasser Al-Attiyah second by nearly five minutes and Carlos Sainz (X-Raid Mini JCW) in third. In the bikes category, Joan Barreda (Monster Energy Honda) bounced back from a difficult stage three to take his second stage win of the rally. Following him was Daniel Sanders (KTM) in second and Luciano Benavides (Husqvarna) in third place. Barreda’s win puts him second overall, behind the privateer Husqvarna of Xavier de Soultrait, with Ross Branch (Yamaha) in third place. Another closely fought class in stage four was in the truck category. Dmitry Sotnikov took his third stage win by a mere 11 seconds over teammate Andrey Karginov to make it a Kamaz 1-2. Following the pair home was Aliaksei Vishneuski (Maz-Sportauto), 22 seconds behind the winner. The win extended Dmitry Sotnikov’s overall lead over Martin Macik in the standings, with teammate Anton Shibalov rounding off the top three. The next stage will cover 662km from Riyadh to Al Qaisumah, with 456km of it being a special stage.
