Carlos Sainz won on Wednesday the fourth stage of Dakar 2011 and strengthened his leader position in the overall rankings.

Dakar Rally 2011 continued on Wednesday with the fourth stage, which begun in the Atacama Desert at an altitude of 3,300 m and ended in Chile.

Stephane Peterhansel dominated the first sector of the stage, but after a tire problem he dropped to the third place and allowed Carlos Sainz, his rival of Volkswagen team, get his third win in a stage of the Dakar 2011 and the 20th in his career.

With this road open, the Spanish strengthened his leader position in the overall ranking, now being separated by the second place, his team-mate Nasser Al-Attiyah, by a gap of over 4 minutes. Nasser Al-Attiyah finished day four in the second place. Even so, Sainz chooses to stay cautions, anticipating that the difficult stages will only start in Chile.

“There was some navigation work, a bit of off-track driving, but I think that it will be tomorrow when things will get serious. Peterhansel, Al-Attiyah and even Giniel De Viliers [place 4 in overall rankings] are dangerous rivals. We’re very close to each other in the standings,” Sainz said at the end of the day.

Here are the first 10 positions in the fourth stage of Dakar 2011:

Pos / Driver / Car  / Time/Gap

1. Carlos Sainz Volkswagen 1h57m09s
2. Nasser Al-Attiyah Volkswagen +50s
3. Stephane Peterhansel BMW +1m22s
4. Giniel de Villiers Volkswagen +2m17s
5. Mark Miller Volkswagen +2m43s
6. Orlando Terranova BMW +4m04s
7. Guerlain Chicherit Mini +4m38s
8. Krzysztof Holowczyc BMW +5m56s
9. Leonid Novitskiy BMW +10m35s
10. Guilherme Spinelli Mitsubishi +11m23s

The Dakar 2011 overall ranking after the first four stages:

Pos / Driver / Car / Time/Gap

1. Carlos Sainz Volkswagen 11h09m14s
2. Nasser Al-Attiyah Volkswagen +4m24s
3. Stephane Peterhansel BMW +5m41s
4. Giniel de Villiers Volkswagen +19m14s
5. Krzysztof Holowczyc BMW +27m45s
6. Orlando Terranova BMW +33m11s
7. Leonid Novitskiy BMW +49m40s
8. Guilherme Spinelli Mitsubishi +59m45s
9. Nani Roma Nissan +1h08m32s
10. Mark Miller Volkswagen +1h08m36s

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Nasser Al-Attiyah won the third stage of the Dakar 011, but Carlos Sainz stays leader of the overall rankings after the first three days.

Starting from the third position in the overall rankings, Nasser Al-Attiyah managed to win in stage three of Rally Dakar, after he finished the route between San Miguel de Tucuman and San Salvador de Jujuy in 3 hours, 42 minutes and 20 seconds.

Even so, the Qatar driver spoke about his disappointment regarding the performances of his car, showing worries bout the engine issues he got on each of every three days of Dakar 2011.

“I am very disappointed. We had the same problems as yesterday (Monday). We completely lost power after 200 kilometres. I don’t understand it. It’s been going on for three days. I gained 1 minute 30 on Sainz in the first part, but I lost my lead on the technical section where you must always use 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear. We have to sort this problem out. I couldn’t care less about our time or victory in the special stage. Tomorrow we will have the dunes and soft sand to contend with and it will be very serious,” Nasser Al-Attiyah said.

Al-Attiyah was followed by Carlos Sainz by 25 seconds, while the legend Stephane Peterhansel finished third, dropping at over four minutes behind the Spanish in the overall ranking.

Here are the first five drivers in Dakar 2011 stage three:

1 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) in 3:42m20
2 Carlos Sainz (VW) +0:00m25
3 Stephane Paterhansel (BMW) +0:00m59
4 Krzysztof Holowczyc (BMW) +0:05m30
5 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:05m53

After the first three stages, the overall ranking looks like this:

1 Carlos Sainz (VW) in 9:12m05
2 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) +0:03m34
3 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +0:04m19
4 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:16m57
5 Krzysztof Holowczyc (BMW) +0:21m49

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Carlos Sainz won the second stage of Rally Dakar 2011 as well and remains the leader of the ranking.

It looks like Carlos Sainz is still unbeatable in Rally Dakar and after the second stage deployed on Monday on a route of 324 km between the Argentinian towns of Cordoba and San Miguel de Tucuman.

The Spanish, defending this year the title won in Dakar 2010, was timed with 3 hours, 11 minutes and 28 seconds, being followed in rankings by his team-mate of Volkswagen, Nasser Al-Attiyah.

But the performance of the Quatar driver was not good enough to gun down Stephane Peterhansel, the rival racing in a BMW X-Raid, currently holding the 2nd position of the general rankings, the gap between the two drivers being now of only 14 seconds.

Volkswagen Team occupies at the end of the second day of Dakar 2011 three of the first four places, but Mark Miller, the fourth driver of the team suffered an accident on Monday, loosing almost 50 minutes. Almost the same thing happened with Robby Gordon, who competes at the steering wheel of a Hummer, loosing over half an hour after an accident.

Here’s the complete rankings of the second stage of Dakar 2011:

1. Carlos Sainz Volkswagen 3h11m28s
2. Nasser Al-Attiyah Volkswagen + 1m03s
3. Stephane Peterhansel BMW + 1m34s
4. Giniel de Villiers Volkswagen + 5m43s
5. Orlando Terranova BMW + 8m14s
6. Krzysztof Holowczyc BMW + 8m57s
7. Guerlain Chicherit Mini + 11m09s
8. Leonid Novitskiy BMW + 14m42s
9. Ricardo Leal dos Santos BMW + 16m42s
10. Guilherme Spinelli Mitsubishi + 17m47s

The overall ranking after two days of Dakar 2011 looks like this:

1. Carlos Sainz Volkswagen 5h30m00s
2. Stephane Peterhansel BMW + 3m05s
3. Nasser Al-Attiyah Volkswagen + 3m19s
4. Giniel de Villiers Volkswagen + 10m49s
5. Krzysztof Holowczyc BMW + 16m04s
6. Orlando Terranova BMW + 18m25s
7. Leonid Novitskiy BMW + 28m23s
8. Guilherme Spinelli Mitsubishi + 29m47s
9. Christian Lavieille Nissan + 33m32s
10. Nani Roma Nissan + 35m45s

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The most difficult rally in the world is hosted for the third time by Argentina and Chile. Sainz, De Villiers and Al-Attiyah are the three Volkswagen drivers with chances to win.

After the 2008 edition of Dakar Rally, which was celebrating 30 years since the start of the first edition, was canceled it was moved from Africa to South America. Now they passed from the adventures between the dunes of Sahara Desert to the adventures between the dunes of Atacama desert and crossing the Andes. Argentina and Chile are hosting the adventure that starts from Buenos Aires on January 1, then it stops for two days in Arica (Chile) on the shore of Pacific for returning in the capital city of Argentina on January 15.

About 10,000 km are scheduled for the 2011 of Rally Dakar, the route making the competitors running at high speeds even at an altitude of over 2,500 m. They will end up further North than in previous editions, the Dakar 2011′s route being very close to the Bolivia and Peru border.

For Dakar 2011 the gasoline-powered cars can increase the diameter of the air intakes to 34 mm. More than this, the teams that use gasoline engines can now use six gears transmissions, compared to the teams that use diesel engines which have to equip their cars with five-gears transmissions. These new regulations need to balance the fight between the cars with gasoline engines and the ones with diesel units.

Compared with the classic rallies, in rally-raid the co-driver has a more important role, given that he needs to dictate for hundreds of kilometers every day. For several years the officials are making changes o reduce the influence of GPS, highlighting the use of road-book. In 2011, the big new thing is that the distance to use the GPS to help you get to the check points (WPM) was reduced. If years ago this distance was of three km, in Dakar 2011 the GPS will show you the direction only 400 m before.

This year, the factory drivers and some other drivers that ended the last two Dakar editions in the first 20th will use in 2011 450 cmc bikes. KTM, the manufacturer that won the last nine editions of Dakar Rally, have developed because of this rule a new bike. Now the Austrians, and more precisely the two official drivers, Marc Coma and Cyril Despres will have to fight for victory against five more bike manufacturers. Besides KTM, at Dakar 2011 Aprilia, Sherco, BMW, Husqvarna and Yamaha will take the start.

VW developed for this edition of Dakar 2011 a new Race Touareg and has three drivers that can win the South American rally. Sainz, the former WRC champion won the rally in 2010, while his South African team-mate won in 2009. Al-Attiyah finished second in 2010 and the Quatar driver is able to finish first at then end of 8,000 km of special stages.

Anyway, there are not few saying that in 2011, just like in 2010 we will see a VW podium. Peterhansel, with his BMW X-Raid can also climb on the podium, while Cuerlain Chicherit and Juan Nani Roma might fight for the fifth place, who, a month before Dakar 2011, was offered a deal to drive a Nissan Navara for Team Overdrive.

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