Peterhansel increases lead at Dakar Rally

Agence France-Presse, Ghat, Libya

France's Stephane Peterhansel upped his lead significantly in the car section following the 584km seventh stage of the Dakar Rally from Ghadames, Libya to here on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Peterhansel, a six-time motorbike champion, beat home his Mitsubishi teammate and last year's winner Hiroshi Masuoka to regain the overall lead from the Japanese.

But Peterhansel's 49-second advantage has widened to 12 minutes 21 seconds following this first mega-length stage of the 8,552-kilometer event benefiting from Masuoka getting lost early in the stage.

However, both Peterhansel and Masuoka played down the gap between the two teammates.

"A lead of 10 minutes represents nothing much," Peterhansel said.

"If we have two punctures the lead will disappear, today was just winning the battle and not the war," he added.

Masuoka was even more relaxed explaining the disparity between him and Peterhansel was because of his losing his way.

"We only lost 10 minutes. There's nothing to worry about," he said.

"Before the rest day there is still 2000 kilometers," he added.

Peterhansel also remained sanguine and voiced fears former world rally champion Ari Vatanen and now Finnish European MP could eat into their dominance of the race despite him being over an hour behind.

"Seeing the gap between myself and Vatanen on Wednesday (27 minutes 4 seconds) suggests he got lost as well and if that should happen to me he has the capacity to wrest the lead away from us," Peterhansel said.

In third spot was the Nissan of Japan's Kenjiro Shinozuka, a massive 51 minutes 20 seconds in arrears.

In the motorbike section Peterhansel's countryman Richard Sainct also increased his lead, from 17 seconds to 1 minute 47 seconds over Italy's Fabrizio Meoni, also on a KTM, after winning the stage on the undulating desert terrain.