11 Jan 2013

Buggy driver eats into Dakar Rally lead

11:37 am on 11 January 2013

Qatar's Nasser al-Attiyah has slashed 10-time champion Stephane Peterhansel's lead by over eight minutes as tragedy struck the Dakar Rally with the death of two people.

In a Buggy, Al-Attiyah, the 2011 winner, has stormed to victory on the sixth stage, having started the day at 9min 54sec behind defending champion Peterhansel in a Mini.

He finished just 1min 18sec off the overall lead, winning his third stage of this year's event, a 438km special from Arica to Calama.

Earlier in the day two people were killed and seven others were injured in a head-on collision between a Dakar Rally support vehicle and a taxi near Peru's border with Chile.

One of two taxis hit the support vehicle head-on while a second cab overturned as its driver tried to avoid the collision.

Two people in the first taxi, including the driver, were killed and seven people, four of them Peruvian, were injured.

Three of the injured, who were travelling in a Land Rover support vehicle, were British members of the Race2Recovery team which is made up of British and US servicemen who have been severely injured and lost limbs in foreign conflicts.