1. Another bike contender falls as Sanders dominates again
Stage three featured the sad demise of American Ricky Brabec from this year’s race. The Monster Energy Honda Team rider started the stage sixth overall in the general classification and was within reach of Daniel ‘Chucky’ Sanders in the first 250km of the stage. At one point, he was just 20” behind the Australian.
Then at 274 km, Brabec came down hard. The American was able to get up, but he was in serious discomfort with his neck and was taken to Yanbu Hospital for treatment. His retirement makes him the second big name to go out early, following Sam Sunderland’s crash in the opening stage.
Whilst it’s one less competitor to worry about, Chucky knows all too well what it’s like to be in the position that both Brabec and Sunderland are currently in. He tore through the third stage with consummate ease and took the stage win in the process. He’s also inherited the overall race lead, which means he’s now the pioneer for the rest of the field when he takes off on stage four tomorrow. His main goal is to lose as little time as possible.
2. Sainz goes from hero to zero in one day
Yesterday, we talked about the rivalry between Carlos Sainz Snr and Nasser Al-Attiyah in their battle for the car component of this race.
We saw in the opening stage the storming drive by Sainz, coming from 31st after an early puncture to win. Then in the second stage, it was Al-Attiyah that equalled the score whilst Sainz maintained the overall lead by two minutes. So from the outside looking in, Sainz had every right to carry a little bit of extra confidence and why not. He had his Ferrari Formula 1 son, Carlos with him for support and he had the car that gave him the best chance for a fifth win.
But the best scenarios don’t fall your way at times. Sainz encountered problems with his left rear suspension, when a linking arm had come loose and was forced to spend half an hour doing running repairs, losing not only the overall lead but a heap of time to Al-Attiyah in the process. The blow was cushioned somewhat when the Qatari lost 21 minutes in total due to two punctures sustained on the stage.
3. Mother Nature shows its brute force
The weather conditions for stage three were rather shaky when the field left Alula en route to Ha’il. By around 9:30 pm AEDT last night, the heavens opened up with a deluge of rain that caught a lot of competitors out.
The most significant that were caught out by the deluge of rain were the Red Bull Can-Am Factory Team pair of Francisco Lopez Contardo and Cristina Gutierrez Herrero. Both entries were navigating through the changing elements when they got stuck crossing a flash flooded creek and were almost swept away by the torrent of water that engulfed both machines.
They were thankfully rescued by the Tatra Buggyra truck entry of Soltys/Krejci/Hoffman and the Instaforex entry of Loprais/Pokora/Valtr Jnr before they were able to return to competition. The pair both lost an hour by virtue of the flooding and were both thankful the stage was neutralised and called off when it did.
4. Good sportsmanship still exists
Kudos must go to the two truck entries that both helped Lopez Contardo and Gutierrez Herrero out of a frightening situation during that flash flood.
We applaud Martin Soltys, Roman Krejci and David Hoffman of Tatra Buggyra ZM racing, as well as Ales Loprais, Petr Pokora and Jaroslav Valtr Jnr of Instaforex Loprais Praga for coming to the rescue of the Red Bull Can-Am. It was very much a case of being in the right place at the right time.
5. Triple punctures bring down Molly’s charge
Things were looking pretty good for Molly Taylor and Andrew Short after a solid performance in stage two of the rally in T4. But it all came horribly undone just before the rain hit.
Starting ninth on the road by virtue of her outright position in the general classification, Taylor and Short gradually lost time early in the stage after suffering back to back punctures. They then suffered a third puncture, which left them stranded for an hour before being rescued by their service crew and then they got caught by the deluge of rain that left them scrambling to negotiate the conditions.
At the time of the stage being called off, they 39th in the stage and now sit 15th overall in the rally more than two hours behind current leaders Marek Goczal and Maciej Marton. But it’s still very early days in the rally and a top ten finish in the t4 is still very much possible.
Catch the third stage highlights tonight from 5pm AEDT on SBS and anytime on SBS On Demand.
