Dakar Rally: Al-Attiyah (Cars), Sunderland (Bikes) roar back to win Stage 3 - MotorSportsTalk

Editor’s note: Check out Stage 2 highlights tonight on NBCSN at 11 p.m. ET, and Stage 3 highlights Tuesday on NBCSN at 5 p.m. ET.

As Stage 3 of the Dakar Rally rolled to a conclusion Monday, Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah rallied back to win his second stage in the first three.

The two-time Dakar champion dominated Stage 3 of the 14-stage event in the Car class, rolling through the Peruvian sand dunes as if it was a day at the beach for him.

The stage began in Pisco, Peru and ended in San Juan De Marcona, Peru. Al-Attiyah won the opening stage on Saturday, but fell back in the second stage on Sunday due to a pair of flat tires.

Even though he suffered another flat tire early in Monday’s Stage 3, a quick repair job allowed him to roar back to win and cut overall leader and defending Rally champion Stephane Peterhansel’s overall event lead to just under eight minutes. Stage 2 winner, France’s Cyril Despres, finished second Monday, three minutes behind Al-Attiyah.

There was one significant incident in the stage. Spain’s Nani Roma, who won the Rally in 2014, rolled his car close to the finish line. He managed to roll the damaged vehicle across the finish line, but was then whisked away to a local hospital with reported head and neck injuries.

MORE: Dakar Rally daily stages schedule, NBCSN broadcast schedule, list of all competitors.

MORE: Stage 2 wrapup

MORE: Stage 1 wrapup

Here’s how all five classes fared after Stage 3, as well as the overall leaders after the first three stages:

CARS

1. Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah, Toyota, 3:09:08
2. France’s Stephane Peterhansel, Peugeot, 3:13:13
3. Spain’s Carlos Sainz, Peugeot, 3:15:15
4. France’s Cyril Despres, Peugeot, 3:16:51
5. France’s Sebastien Loeb, Peugeot, 3:17:42

OVERALL LEADERS

1. France’s Stephane Peterhansel
2. France’s Cyril Despres
3. Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah
4. France’s Sebastien Loeb
5. South Africa’s Giniel de Villiers

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MOTORCYCLES

In the other marquee class in the Rally, British motorcycle rider Sam Sunderland captured his second of the first three stages, defeating Argentina’s Kevin Benavides by more than three minutes on Monday.

In doing so, Sunderland is back atop the overall standings heading into Tuesday’s Stage 4. Joan Barreda Bort, who won Stage 2, missed a turn in Stage 3, was forced to double back and took a huge drop to 28th in the overall standings.

1. England’s Sam Sunderland, KTM, 3:20:43
2. Argentina’s Kevin Benevides, Honda, 3:02:27
3. Australia’s Toby Price, KTM, 3:24:11
4. USA’s Ricky Brabec, Honda, 3:24:38
5. Chile’s Pablo Quintanilla, Husqvarna, 3:25:03

As for the position of the five Americans in the class:

4th: Ricky Brabec (Honda), 3:24:38
25th: Andrew Short (Husqvarna), 3:45:02
26th: Shane Esposito (KTM), 3:46:51
72nd: Bill Conger (Husqvarna), 4:44:40
109th: Mark Samuels (Honda), 5:38:13

OVERALL LEADERS

1. England’s Sam Sunderland
2. Argentina’s Kevin Benavides
3. Chile’s Pablo Quintanilla
4. Australia’s Toby Price
5. USA’s Ricky Brabec]

Here’s how Barreda Bort’s day went:

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TRUCK

Argentina’s Federico Villagra rolled to the Stage 3 triumph, beating defending Rally champion, Russian Eduard Nikolaev, by 25 seconds in Stage 3. Russia’s Ayrat Mardeev came in third with Czech Republic’s Martin Macik and Belarus’s Aliaksei Vishneuski a distant fourth and fifth respectively.

However, Nikolaev retained the overall lead in the class by nearly a seven-minute margin over Villagra.

1. Argentina’s Federico Villagra (Iveco), 3:57:37
2. Russia’s Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz), 3:57:12
3. Russia’s Ayrat Mardeev (Kamaz), 4:00:46
4. Czech Republic’s Martin Macik (Liaz), 4:09:55
5. Belarus’s Aliaksei Vishneuski (Maz), 4:21:04

OVERALL LEADERS

1. Russia’s Eduard Nikolaev
2. Argentina’s Federico Villagra
3. Belarus’s Aliaksei Vishneuski
4. Belarus’s Siarhei Vlazovich
5. Czech Republic’s Martin Macik

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QUADS

1. Chile’s Ignacio Casale (Yamaha), 3:58:08
2. Peru’s Alexis Hernandez (Yamaha), 4:07:03
3. Argentina’s Pablo Copetti (Yamaha), 4:13:00
4. Brazil’s Marcelo Medeiros (Yamaha), 4:13:07
5. Argentina’s Gustavo Gallego (Yamaha), 4:15:51

OVERALL LEADERS

1. Chile’s Ignacio Casale
2. Russia’s Sergei Kariakin
3. Argentina’s Pablo Copetti
4. Peru’s Alexis Hernandez
5. Argentina’s Gustavo Gallego

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SxS UTV

1. Peru’s Juan Uribe Ramos (Can-Am), 4:30:36
2. France’s Patricie Garrouste (Polaris), 4:47:49
3. France’s Claudio Fournier (Polaris), 5:12:48
4. Peru’s Anibal Aliaga (Polaris), 5:56:59
5. Brazil’s Reinaldo Varela (Can-Am), 6:35:02

OVERALL LEADERS

1. Peru’s Juan Uribe Ramos
2. France’s Patricie Garrouste
3. Peru’s Anibal Aliaga
4. France’s Claudio Fournier
5. Brazil’s Reinaldo Varela

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STAGE 4: On Tuesday, the Rally will take a circuitous course that both begins and ends in San Juan de Marcona, Peru.

Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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