Dakar 2017, Stage 3: Peterhansel wins amid disaster for Toyota

Al-Attiyah headed the pack for much of the stage and looked set to wrest the overall lead away from Sebastien Loeb at the day's end, only for his Toyota Hilux to sustain significant damage, forcing him to stop.

After the first two days were run close to sea level, Wednesday's Argentina-based San Miguel de Tucuman – Jujuy test featured a major spike in altitude ahead of the rally's arrival in Bolivia.

The timed stage was split into two sections, a 240km opener and a 124km follow-up, linked by a neutralised road section where the cars climbed more than 5000m above sea level.

Loeb had entered the day with a 28-second lead over Al-Attiyah, but his advantage was gone in no time, the Qatari making up four minutes during the navigation-heavy opening kilometres.

Through the remainder of the first timed section, Al-Attiyah was instead challenged by Peterhansel, but managed to keep the Frenchman at bay, entering the neutralised zone with a two-minute advantage.

But his charge came to an end soon after he resumed timed running, Al-Attiyah badly damaging a wheel off-piste and grinding to a halt. He remained stationary for around an hour before resuming, only to stop again shortly thereafter.

With the Qatari stranded, Peterhansel eased to his first stage victory of the rally, with Sainz and Loeb making up a Peugeot 1-2-3.

In the general classification, the order is reversed, Loeb heading Sainz by 42 seconds, with Peterhansel four minutes adrift.

X-Raid Mini's Mikko Hirvonen had run within the top three for much of the stage, but eventually dropped back to fourth. The Finn now sits as the best of the rest behind Peugeots in the main classification, trailing Loeb by 9m38s.

Al-Attiyah's dramas were far from the only bad news of the day for Toyota, as Nani Roma, Giniel de Villiers and privateer Erik van Loon all stopped in the second part of the stage.

Of the trio, Roma came off best, losing only a few minutes to end up fifth overall, just ahead of X-Raid Mini driver Yazeed Al-Rajhi and the fourth factory Peugeot of Cyril Despres.

De Villiers, meanwhile, has dropped to 35 minutes off the lead as a result of his stoppage, and is now outside the top 10.

Cars standings after Stage 3: