Al-Attiyah saved by stewards decision after deluge

Brazil’s Guilherme Spinelli is seen stuck in a flooded river during Stage 8 of the Dakar Rally 2013 between Salta and Tucuman, Argentina, on January 12. The rally takes place in Peru, Argentina and Chile from January 5-20. AFP

TUCUMAN, Argentina (AFP) – Qatar’s 2011 Dakar Rally champion Nasser al-Attiyah was a relieved man on Sunday as, despite getting stuck when torrential rain brought chaos to the eighth stage from Salta to Tucuman, he remained in second place.

According to Al-Attiyah’s team Red Bull’s website, race stewards decided to hand all of the cars that were unable to complete the stage the same time as the last competitor who finished before the stage was abandoned.

This revised result keeps the 42-year-old Qatari in second place and trailing France’s defending champion Stephane Peterhansel by just 3min 14sec.

The race had been stopped at the 88km mark when a riverbed on the course swelled with water.

At that time, Al-Attiyah was 13sec ahead of America’s Robby Gordon with Peterhansel three minutes behind.

But as the storms worsened, al-Attiyah got stuck and then watched several of his rivals disappear into the distance.

Guerlain Chicherit reached the finish in the fastest time with Peterhansel – a 10-time Dakar winner with six victories on a motorobike and four times in the car discipline – over 12 minutes behind.

Al-Attiyah’s car, having been successfully extricated from the quagmire and driven to the stage finish in Tucuman, will be given an intensive inspection by the Red Bull mechanics during Sunday’s rest day.

Al-Attiyah said the stage had been going swimmingly for them until the torrents of water prevented them from crossing.

“The stage was going very well for us and we had the lead until the conditions on the stage changed,” said Al-Attiyah, who won Olympic bronze in the shooting competition last year.

“It was raining and lots of water was coming down from the mountains that made the rivers impossible to cross. We decided we just had to stop and we called the race organisers to let them know there was no way to cross the river. They told us then that they were in the process of stopping the race.”