Dakar record holder strikes as gap closes on leader

Henk Lategan was forced to concede second best to fellow South African Saood Variawa as the 20-year-old scored a remarkable win on stage eight of this year's Dakar Rally.

Variawa announced himself at the event last year when he became the youngest stage winner in Dakar history in the car category at the age of just 19.

On this occasion, starting from 26th ahead of the loop around Wadi ad Dawasir, Variawa surged his way through the field to claim victory from Lategan by just three seconds in a Toyota Hilux one-two.

The result could yet be crucial for Lategan, who made up a minute on overall leader Nasser Al-Attiyah, to move up to third on the leaderboard ahead of Ford's Nani Roma and close the gap to the Dacia front runner to just over six minutes.

Overall, on the stage, the top seven were separated by just two minutes, with Sweden's Mattias Ekström claiming third behind the South African duo, finishing 29 seconds adrift of Variawa in his Ford Raptor, and making up just over 30 seconds on Al-Attiyah. He now lies exactly four minutes adrift.

Seth Quintero was fourth ahead of Al-Attiyah, whose gap to Roma has stretched to almost 10 minutes, whilst fellow Ford Raptor driver Carlos Sainz lies fifth, another minute off the pace. There is then a considerable gap to Sébastien Loeb in sixth, 17 minutes down on Dacia team-mate Al-Attiyah.

View the general classification below!