Dakar: Matthias Ekström won the 7th stage of the rally raid.

      Swedish driver Mattias Ekström once again confirmed that he has all the necessary qualities to win the Dakar rally-raid. Whether he will actually succeed is another question, but in any case his off-road prototype Ford Raptor bearing number 226 arrived first at the finish of the seventh stage.

      He beat his nearest pursuer, Portuguese João Ferreira, a driver for the factory Toyota team, by almost four and a half minutes and moved up to second place in the overall standings. But Nasser Al-Attiyah remains the leader, although Ekström reduced the deficit to the five-time Dakar winner.

      The driver from Qatar finished outside the top ten today — both due to navigation difficulties and because, at full speed in his Dacia Sandrider off-roader, he clipped a tree. Nevertheless, after the finish Al-Attiyah said he was satisfied with the result because he didn't lose that much time.

      The best of his teammates today was Brazilian Lucas Moraes, who took fifth place, and he was followed across the line by Sébastien Loeb, who is sixth in the overall standings.

      One of the day's losers was Henk Lategan: he led for a significant portion of the route but overdid it at the 428 km mark, resulting in serious damage to the rear of his Toyota Hilux and broken shock absorbers. The experienced South African driver lost almost ten minutes, and when he reached the finish distraught he even refused to speak to the press.

      In the two-wheeled category Luciano Benavides posted the best time — it's the Argentine KTM rider's third stage win at Dakar, and today he beat Spaniard Edgar Canet by almost five minutes. But after seven stages Luciano currently sits third, behind Australian Daniel Sanders, his factory KTM teammate, and Ricky Brabec, who rides a Honda.

      Overall it was something of an "Argentina day" at the rally-raid, since in the Challenger class the stage was won by the crew of Kevin Benavides, Luciano's older brother, and in SS1 their young compatriot, 20-year-old Jeremias Gonzalez Ferioli, who pilots a BRP Can-Am Maverick R ATV, took first place.

      In the truck class the fastest over the seventh stage was an international crew in an Iveco Powerstar of Team de Rooy FPT, piloted by Lithuanian driver Vaidotas Žala, with Portuguese co-driver Paulo Fiuza and Dutch mechanic Max van Grol. In the overall standings crew No. 604 is third, behind the Czech trio of Martin Macík and the Dutch crew of Mitchel van den Brink, who continue to lead with almost a half-hour advantage.

      Tomorrow the competitors in the supermarathon face a loop stage around the city of Wadi Al-Dawasir, including 481 km of timed special stages — the longest distance among all Dakar stages. The route passes through more or less varied landscapes, but is also characterized by unexpected changes in direction. They say it's one of those stages that drivers and their co-drivers fear the most — which means, as always in such competitions, there may be surprises.