P1racenews AI automatic summary:
Another remarkable Dakar Rally day and an astonishing drive from a 20-year-old.
Henk Lategan had to settle for second place behind fellow South African Saood Variawa in an impressive victory on stage eight of this year’s Dakar Rally. Variawa, at just 20 years old, achieved a notable win after starting from 26th position at Wadi ad Dawasir, finishing only three seconds ahead of Lategan in a Toyota Hilux one-two. Lategan’s performance, gaining a minute on overall leader Nasser Al-Attiyah, pushed him to third place on the leaderboard, cutting the gap to the frontrunner to just over six minutes. The top seven finishers were separated by only two minutes on the stage, with Mattias Ekström in third, 29 seconds behind Variawa in a Ford Raptor, and now four minutes behind Al-Attiyah. Seth Quintero secured fourth place ahead of Al-Attiyah, with Al-Attiyah falling almost 10 minutes behind Nani Roma. Carlos Sainz sits in fifth place, one minute behind Al-Attiyah, followed by Sébastien Loeb in sixth, trailing by 17 minutes behind the Dacia team leader.
