Moraes grabs first Dakar win as Sunderland retires

Moraes grabs first Dakar win as Sunderland retires

Lucas Moraes grabbed his first Dakar stage victory on Monday as Yazeed al-Rajhi finished third to take the overall lead in the car class.Defending champion Nasser al-Attiyah drove his Hunter like a boss, until a series of punctures calmed him down, forcing him to even complete the last thirty kilometres on a wheel rim from which the rear left tyre had been ripped off.Al-Attiyah and co-driver Mathieu Baumel are fifth overall with a 10m49s gap to bridge to the leader.In the bikes, Kevin Benavides claimed victories as a host of his rivals were penalised for speeding and two-time winner Sam Sunderland was knocked out of the race by mechanical problem ended his interest in this year’s edition, organisers said.Moraes, a Brazilian Toyota driver won the 438km third stage by just nine seconds from Swede Mattias Ekstrom in an Audi.Saudi Arabian al-Rajhi (Toyota) was third at 1 minute 9 seconds but even he got lost.“Navigating was pretty hard today,” he said. “We had to backtrack several times. But we made it here.”Moraes thanked his co-driver Armand Monleon for guiding him through the dunes.“I have to give it up to Armand because the navigation was very tricky and he was on point