The Qatari, driving a Dacia Sandrider, started the day in second place and chasing Toyota\u2019s South African (SA) \u00a0leader Henk Lategan but dropped to seventh and 35 minutes adrift after suffering wheel issues.<\/p>\n
Local hero Yazeed Al-Rajhi won the 415 kilometre stage four from Al-Henakiyah to Al Ula for the Toyota Overdrive Racing team, with Lategan four minutes and 51 seconds slower.<\/p>\n
Lategan\u2019s overall lead shrank to six minutes and 54 seconds, with Al-Rajhi again his closest rival after moving up from fourth.<\/p>\n
France\u2019s nine-times world rally champion Loeb, Al-Attiyah\u2019s teammate, was ruled out with a damaged car on Tuesday while four times Dakar winner Sainz went out on Monday after rolling his Ford.<\/p>\n
In the motorcycle category, Australian Red Bull KTM rider Daniel Sanders stretched his lead to 13 minutes and 26 seconds over Spaniard Tosha Schareina after a fourth stage win out of five, including the prologue.<\/p>\n
Botswana\u2019s Ross Branch remained third overall, with defending champion Ricky Brabec of the United States in fifth place but nearly half an hour off the lead.<\/p>\n
The two-week rally ends on January 17.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12457,"template":"default||default||default||default||default||default||default||default","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-12456","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah hit trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.||Five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah hit trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.||Five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah hit trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.||Five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah hit trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.||Five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah hit trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.||Five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah hit trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.||Five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah hit trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.||Five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah hit trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.","published_date":null,"news_description":"Five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah hit trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.||Five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah hit trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.||Five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah hit trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.||Five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah hit trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.||Five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah hit trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.||Five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah hit trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.||Five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah hit trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.||Five-times winner Nasser Al-Attiyah hit trouble in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, the latest frontrunner to struggle in the Saudi Arabian sands after the departures of Sebastien Loeb and defending champion Carlos Sainz.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18055,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12456\/revisions\/18055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=12456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}