Dakar Stage 5 Highlights: Sebastien Loeb closes in on Dakar leaders - MotorSportsTalk

With a solid showing in Stage 5 of the Dakar Rally, Sam Sunderland closed to within less than a minute behind overall leader Ricky Brabec in the motorcycle class. The overall leader Brabec finished more than six minutes off the leader’s pace.

Sebastian Loeb won the stage for the car to shave more than 10 minutes off leader Nasser Al-Attiyah’s advantage and now sits 40 minutes behind.

“It was a very good day for me,” Loeb said at Dakar.com. “We pushed really hard from the start to the end of the stage, with no mistakes, no punctures, nothing. We had a perfect day. We’ll see where we are [in the standings]. The road-book was correct today, so we didn’t make any mistakes and it was good.”

Here are some of the other highlights:

In the cars class, Sebastien Loeb proved that he is not going to be discounted in the 2019 Dakar by winning his second stage; he also won Stage 2. … Nasser Al-Attiyah gained 16 minutes on his principal rival Stephane Peterhansel. … Nani Roma rounded out the top three. … Peterhansel finished fourth on the stage.

Class Leaders: Al-Attiyah holds an advantage of 24:42 over Peterhansel and 34:33 over Roma

In motorcycles, Sam Sunderland stopped to assist Paulo Concalves and was credited with the win after 10 minutes was subtracted from his time for the assistance. … Jose Florimo finished 2:25 behind with Xavier de Soutrait rounding out the top three. … A cautious start to the stage contributed to Ricky Brabec’s 12th-place finish in the stage. He lost 6:46 to Sunderland. … Pablo Quintanilla finished 14th, 7:19 and fell to third overall.

Class Leaders: Brabec holds an advantage of 0:59 over Sunderland and 2:52 over Quintanilla

In side by sides Rodrigo Piazolli became the fifth different winning in five stages this year with a time of six hours, 33 minutes, 52 seconds. … He narrowly beat Reinaldo Varela, who was looking for his second stage win after taking the victory on day 1. … Gerard Farres Guell finished 32:42 behind the leader in third.

Class Leaders: Piazzoli holds an advantage of 1:42 over Varela and 14:08 over Guell

In quads, Nicolas Cavigliasso continued to dominate the rally with his fourth stage win. … Jeremias Gonzalez Ferioli has come close on several occasions with one stage win and three runner-up finishes. … Gustavo Gallego finished third.

Class Leaders: Cavigliasso holds an advantage of 1:00 over Feriolii and 2:00 over Gallego

In trucks, After dropping back to back stages to Andrey Karginov, Eduard Nikolaev was back at the top of the leaderboard for his third stage win. … Dmitry Sotnikov and Siarhei Viazovich rounded out the top three. … Karginov finished fourth, but was later excluded from the race.A statement from the organization of the rally stated, “At Kilometer 279 of the SS a 60-year-old man from South Africa who was watching the race in an unsecured area (outside the established spectator’s zone), was hit by a race truck (#518 Andrey Karginov). The competitor was excluded from the by the jury of commissioners for not stopping to attend to the injured spectator.”

Overall: Nikolaev holds and advantage of 11:54 over Sornikov and 16:45 over Karginov.

Stage Wins

Motorcycles
Joan Barreda [1] (Stage 1), Matthias Walkner [1] (Stage 2), Xavier de Soultrait [1] (Stage 3), Ricky Brabec [1] (Stage 4) and Sam Sunderland [1] (Stage 5)

Quads
Nicolas Cavigliasso [4] (Stage 1, 2, 4 and 5), Jeremias Gonzalez Ferioli [1] (Stage 3)

Cars
Nasser Al-Attiyah [2] (Stage 1 and 4), Sebastien Loeb [2] (Stage 2 and 5) and Stephane Peterhansel [1] (Stage 3)

Side-by-sides
Reinaldo Varela [1] (Stage 1), Francisco Lopez Contardo [1] (Stage 2), Gerard Farres Guell [1] (Stage 3), Sergei Kariakin [1] (Stage 4) and Rodrigo Piazzoli [1] (Stage 5)

Trucks
Eduard Nikolaev [3] (Stage 1, 2 and 5) and
Andrey Karginov [2] (Stage 3 and 4)

For more watch the daily highlight show on NBCSN. Click here for the complete schedule.

Or check out the streaming show at 1:30-2 a.m. by clicking this link.

INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33. Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports