In the 47 years of the Dakar Rally, an event that continued even through the pandemic, across what is now seven categories, only one Australian has been a victor.
Daniel Sanders is within 400 km of following Tony Price into that exclusive hall of fame having extended his lead in the motorcycle category to nearly 15 minutes after a third-place finish on stage nine.
The Victorian benefited from a crash suffered by his closest challenger, Spain's Tosha Schareina, whose back wheel hit a rock and sent him flying 20 km into the 357 km stage from Riyadh south-east to Haradh.
Schareina recovered to finish seventh in the stage but lost three minutes, 42 seconds on Sanders who is now 14 mins, 45 secs clear.
The rally has effectively two days remaining. The last day, Friday, is a ceremonial drive to the finish line in Shubaytah. There, barring a crash or becoming lost in the dunes of Saudi Araba's Empty Quarter, Sanders will follow compatriot Toby Price who won the same category in 2016 and 2019.
Tuesday's stage was won, as was Monday's, by Sanders' KTM teammate Luciano Benavides of Argentina, who is in fourth place. Schareina's Honda teammate Adrien van Beveren of France remains third after coming second in the stage.
"I saw Tosha had a crash at the check point, he said he was okay," Sanders said.
"I lost a bit of time today," added Sanders. "I couldn't see the tracks properly because it was really white dirt. It was really hard to navigate and I was just making sure I was on the right spots. I only got lost a couple of times."
Price entered the car category this year with fellow two-time Dakar winner Sam Sunderland of Great Britain, but had to withdraw after a mechanical on stage seven.
In that category local driver Yazeed Al Rajhi now leads after a miserable stage by South Africa's Henk Lategan.
Lategan led the Dakar for the past week, but errors and bad luck on the stage turned his overall lead of more than five minutes over Al Rajhi into a potentially decisive seven-minute deficit.
Al Rajhi, like Lategan, has never won the Dakar. This is the Saudi's 11th attempt with a best finish of third in 2022.
"It's a bit of disaster," Lategan said. "About 13 km in we got lost. We thought we missed the waypoint but we actually had it. When we got lost we got one puncture and then towards the end we got another one and the wheel is flat. It was a messy, messy, messy day for us but it's not the end of the world, we're still in it."
Qatari Nassar Al-Attiyah won the stage to rise to one minute off third place overall.
with agencies
