The Latest Breaking News from Carlos Sainz Sr

Thursday’s 420km test between Al-’Ula and Yanbu marked Loeb’s last real chance of overhauling Audi’s Carlos Sainz Sr in the overall standings, with Friday’s final stage being too short to make a serious impact.

The 420km test between Al-'Ula and Yanbu was expected to be one of the toughest stages of 2024, as it ran through some of the areas that caused so many punctures in last year's edition of the rally-raid.

Loeb began the 371km Alula loop stage on the back foot as he briefly stopped at 53km, but fought back to gain five minutes on overall leader Sainz at the 225km checkpoint. 

Loeb made a low-key start to Sunday’s 483km test between Riyadh and Al-Duwadimi, but the nine-time World Rally champion was gradually able to make his way to the front, taking his third stage victory of the year with a margin of 7m06s over Toyota’s Lucas Moraes.

As the 549km test around Shubaytah resumed on Friday, Loeb sat third in the order behind Audi duo Carlos Sainz Sr and Mattias Ekstrom, with 5m19s to make up and only a third of the distance remaining.

Prodrive driver Loeb sat a distant ninth in the general classification heading into the fourth stage in Saudi Arabia, having lost a considerable amount of time on the opening day due to punctures and a broken rear tow link - and again on Monday with more tyre troubles.

In an ultra-competitive Al Duwadimi to Al Salamiya pass covering 438km, which saw the stage lead swap between multiple runners, a four-way victory fight developed between Toyota’s Moraes, Audi’s Mattias Ekstrom, Overdrive’s Al-Rajhi and defending champion Nasser Al-Attiyah for Prodrive. 

De Mevius, who sat a distant 32nd after Friday’s Prologue, made rapid gains over the course of the 414km test between Al-’Ula and Al Henakiyah to overhaul Mattias Ekstrom and then Carlos Sainz Sr (both Audi) to claim his first-ever stage victory in Dakar.

The 2024 Dakar Rally will be the fifth successive event to take place entirely in Saudi Arabia, but organiser ASO has laid out a route that will be vastly different to previous years.

Verstappen bolted on the soft tyres in the final part of the session to leapfrog long-time session leader Fernando Alonso, setting a 1m27.428s. T

Rodin Carlin's team principal Trevor Carlin has six former racers on the F1 grid this year, with Carlos Sainz Jr, Yuki Tsunoda, George Russell, Lando Norris, Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargeant all working with him during their junior careers