Photo Sourced From: Dakar

With the Dakar Rally reaching the half way point it looked like the domination of Team Peugeot would continue. During Stage 7 Team Mini driver Nasser Al-Attiyah was able to break the Peugeot podium sweep.

“We lost less time to the Peugeots today, so we’re rather happy. All we can do now is attack. Taking the fight to the Peugeots will be tough, but it looks like even they can run into trouble. There are some extremely hard stages coming. I did my best throughout the week, even behind them. We’ll see how it goes. Right now I’m far ahead the other 4x4s. I’ll try to defend my position and finish on the podium, which would be quite an accomplishment,” Al-Attiyah said after taking third.

Photo Sourced From: Dakar

Team Peugeot driver Carlos Sainz took the overall win in the stage. Upon his victory he said, “We’re happy. After the downer on the first day, this is a good result. We had to stop on the first day and we were almost knocked out of the race after 14″! We pushed hard to catch up and get a win. We’ve done that now. We could’ve earned another win. Our strategy? Now, as always, to keep it up!”

Robby Gordon and Sheldon Creed both finished in the top 20 for the stage with Gordon finishing 11th and Creed 20th. “The last couple days have been fast, smooth graded roads. Unfortunately we ran out of gas on the longest special of the rally, we just did not put enough gas in,” Gordon explained.

“We feel our vehicles will be better suited for the second half of the rally,” Gordon continued. We will just need to wait and see if the Gordini’s can make their way to the top. Do you think the US has any chance against the larger factory teams? Tell us in the comments below!

Photo Sourced From: Dakar