Masuoka stretches Dakar advantage
PARIS, France (Reuters) -- Race leader and defending champion Hiroshi Masuoka forged further ahead in the Dakar Rally on Wednesday after winning the longest stage of the 17-day event.
The Mitsubushi driver led French team-mate Stephane Peterhansel by 11 minutes and 42 seconds after the 701-km seventh stage between Tan Tan in Morocco and Atar in Mauritania.
Briton Colin McRae is third overall, a position he held on Tuesday night after having a time penalty for speeding removed.
The 1995 world rally world champion, competing in his first Dakar, was 41 minutes adrift of Masuoka -- winner of the last two Dakar rallies.
McRae was slowed when his Nissan was stuck in a dune 456-km into a stage across the Oumaghawaba Erg.
In the motorcycle category, Spain's overnight leader Isidre Esteve Pujol had a heavy fall after the first checkpoint and lost more than 10 minutes.
France's Richard Sainct, the reigning champion and a three-times Dakar winner, took the stage despite struggling with an arm injury while French rider Cyril Despres, on a KTM, claimed the overall lead.
Thursday's 393-km eighth stage is from Atar to Tidjikja.
