INTERNATIONAL: Qatar's Nasser Al Attiyah stayed comfortably ahead in the Dakar Rally as Sebastien Loeb moved back into second place with a stage victory at the start of week two in Saudi Arabia on Sunday.

Loeb's second stage win of 2022 left France's nine times world rally champion, driving for the Bahrain Raid Xtreme team, some 45 minutes adrift of his factory Toyota rival in the car category with five stages to go.

Al Attiyah, chasing his fourth Dakar title in the desert dunes, was second in the 402 km timed seventh stage from the capital Riyadh West to Al Dawadimi, but more than five minutes slower than Loeb.

Frenchman Adrien Van Beveren took the overall lead in the motorcycles from Britain's Sam Sunderland, who fell back to fourth and some five-and-a-half minutes off the pace after finishing 28th.

Chilean rider Jose Ignacio Cornejo won the stage on a Honda.

Australian Daniel Sanders, Sunderland's GasGas team mate who won the first and sixth stages, was rushed to the hospital after crashing and injuring his left arm on the way to a timed stage he had been due to lead off in.

The rally ends in Jeddah on Friday, January 14.

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