Overall Dakar Rally victory contender falls away in major shake-up

Mathieu Serradori, as winner of the 10th stage in the Dakar Rally, got to start proceedings on stage 11. Thursday's special stage was "only" 347 kilometers long, with navigation once again playing a crucial role, according to the Dakar organisers.

The field was close together at the beginning of the stage, but as the special progressed, the gaps got increased considerably.

The leader in the general classification, Nasser Al-Attiyah, had a weak stage. He lost time at every waypoint to the man who had been in the lead all stage: Mattias Ekström.

Nobody could stop the lightning-fast Swede in his Ford. At the end of the stage he had a margin of 1 minute and 22 seconds over the runner-up, Romain Dumas, followed by Carlos Sainz Sr., Joao Ferreira and Seth Quintero.

For Henk Lategan, who before this stage was still second in the general classification, it was a stage to forget very quickly. 

The South African stood still for a very long time and lost hours of time. As a result, the South African can forget about victory in the iconic off-road race.

In the general classification it all came a little closer together, as Al-Attiyah lost time on most competitors. Nani Roma and Sébastien Loeb caught up with the Dacia driver and rose to second and third positions due to Lategan's time loss, while Ekström nestled in fourth. 

Roma has to make up a deficit of over eight minutes on Al-Attiyah, and so with two stages to go it is still very exciting in the battle for the overall victory.

View the overall standings for the cars below!