Ales Loprais secures his 3rd overall in a draconian Stage 6 as all stages before the rest day are usually gruelling ones.
The organisers prepared another tough menu for Stage 6 in the Atacama desert. It was a stage full of dunes, dune mountans, sand, fechefeche, clouds of dust in an unmanned landscape with no life. What a s typical Stacama stage! Fortunately, the starting order for trucks was already mixed with cars and so all truck drivers could enjoy open spaces without slower vehicles on the way. Ales backed up a bit at the beginning f stage stage, losing 6 minutes to Kabirov before WP2. Then he started to close the gap together with Chagin, at some point of the stage all three of them were spread within one minute! Later on, at the end of the stage, Chagin had a puncture and Ales Loprais continued attacking on Kabirov. He passed the Russian and added 3m55s to reach his first stage win this year.
Overall, everything remains the same. Ales keeps his 3rd position but the gap of TOP3 drivers is smalled now, only 19 minutes. The fourt on, Nikolaev, is almost one-and-half hours adrift of Kabirov. The only one to face the Kamaz squad further is Franz Echter who, however, lost more than one hour today. Sadly, the rally continues without the Tatra of Andre de Azevedo who broke his front axle and retired. Just like every stage before the rest day, many competitors are expected to arrive really late