Dammam, January 15 (QNA) – Qatari driver Nasser Al Attiyah won his fifth Dakar Rally driver’s title and second in a row on Sunday after the iconic test of endurance finished in Dammam, Saudi Arabia which hosts Rally contests amid participation of 820 drivers and navigators representing 68 different countries.
Al Attiyah won three stages and had more than an hour’s advantage in the overall standings over Frenchman Sebastien Loeb, who finished runner-up last year.
Al Attiyah’s Toyota team-mate Lucas Moraes of Brazil finished third, and took the overall lead after the third stage, having built up a commanding advantage in the first week and deployed a safety first strategy in the second half of the race.
He was crowned in the previous versions of Dakar Rally held in the years 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2022, while Sebastien Loeb won the second place in the general standings, 1 hour and 20:49 minutes away from Al Attiyah, after setting a record on Saturday by winning six consecutive stages. (QNA)