France’s nine-time world rally champion, driving a Peugeot, took the third stage between the Argentinian towns of Termas de Rio Hondo and San Salvador de Jujuy to consolidate his place atop the overall standings.
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South Africa’s Giiel De Villiers moved into second place in the overall standings for Toyota while Loeb’s Team Peugeot Total team mate Stephane Peterhansel dropped to third.
World rally legend Loeb, with two stage wins in the bag already on his promising Dakar debut, remained atop the overall standings with Peterhansel in second at 4min 48sec.
The Portuguese, also on a Honda, covered Wednesday’s 429 kilometre stage in 4 hours 7min 19sec.
Thursday’s fifth stage is a 327-kilometre ride from Jujuy to Uyuni in Bolivia.
“It was tricky out there and I’m happy we came through okay”. In the meantime, the bikes and cars are parked up in parc fermé with no overnight work allowed, meaning the riders and drivers had to take good care of their respective machines and tyres today.
This year’s Dakar Rally kept up its record of delivering the unexpected every single day: in fact, not one of the stages has run entirely according to schedule since the proper action started as the crews left Buenos Aires three days ago.
“It was a good day for us, because we stayed out of trouble and did what we had to do”, Loeb said. But when we go to the desert, it will be different, with long and hot stages. Unfortunately for him, the scenario repeated, only this time Barreda got a five-minute penalty in Stage 4. I thought it was going to be much wetter, but it was fine.
Bike stage victor Goncalves was delighted after winning the stage – but he was given the win after team-mate Joan Barreda was penalised for speeding, Goncalves being elevated to stage victory by four minutes 46 seconds to grab the overall lead in the race.
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In a day which Peugeot totally dominated, Peterhansel led the rankings thanks to a blistering start by pulling out over a second on Loeb and 2015 Dakar victor Nasser Al-Attiyah for Mini All4 Racing.
