João Ferreira entered Stage 3 of the Desafío Ruta 40 as the overall leader. Unfortunately, his quest for his maiden W2RC Ultimate victory will continue on.

After briefly getting stuck early on, Ferreira was the fastest car on track through the first split. At the 94-kilometer mark, Lucas Moraes took a wrong turn and ended up backward on the course. Moraes started to climb a dune while Ferreira prepared to descend it on the opposite side.

Neither were aware of the other until it was too late. Moraes swerved to avoid Ferreira but the two collided. Ferreira clipped Moraes’ left rear and got turned before rolling once and landing on his wheels.

Moraes apologized to Ferreira for the accident.

“In the first section of dunes, we had around five or six kilometers off piste,” Moraes explained. “We followed the CAP and everything was going well. We were slightly too far to the left, but we managed to find a waypoint. Then we turned, thinking we were on the correct line, and suddenly João Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro’s Toyota appeared and we collided.”

The damage was enough to knock Ferreira out of the stage and contention, but he plans to rejoin the race for the final two days and rack up as many stage points as he can.

Palmeiro felt the situation could’ve been avoided had the FIA mandated the use of flags on the cars. Flags are affixed for stages with large dunes that might reduce visibility, such as Stage 10 at this year’s Dakar Rally.

“I don’t understand exactly why we don’t use the flag in this situation,” Ferreira’s navigator opined. “For safety reasons, I think it’d make sense in this situation. I think we won’t have this problem because the last time before we crossed, the UNIK was 40 meters. Two cars going on the same direction, it was not possible to avoid.”

Before the crash, Ferreira had been clinging onto a nine-second overall lead ahead of fellow Toyota driver Seth Quintero. However, Quintero couldn’t exactly capitalize on his exit as teammate Henk Lategan beat him by 4:23 to shoot from fourth overall into first. Lategan holds a 1:39 advantage on Quintero.

The crash was one in a series of misfortunes that broke up the Toyota party. Going into Wednesday, Hiluxes locked out the top four while Dacia’s Nasser Al-Attiyah was fifth. By the end, Al-Attiyah sits third and within striking distance of Lategan with 5:28 between them.

Saood Variawa, who was third overall, was running second until he made some navigation errors and had to turn around for dunes. He also stopped to help Ferreira, which cost him some time but should be compensated via time credits, a perk that won’t be given to him for the aforementioned errors. He falls to fourth.

Like Ferreira, Marek Goczał was taken out on Wednesday when he rolled his Hilux. His son Eryk was passing by but couldn’t see him, meaning there was nobody to help the older Goczał back on his wheels. Eryk eventually got lost and struggled to pass slower cars, leaving him stuck in 14th for the day.

Another contender in Carlos Sainz bowed out after a belt broke on his Ford Raptor. He was sixth overall prior to Stage 3 and the leading Ford.

Puck Klaassen finally snapped Alexandre Pinto’s streak in Challenger as she held off Matthias Walkner by 39 seconds. Pinto was 3:04 back of Klaassen and still holds the top spot in T3, though Walkner has sliced the gap in half from seven minutes to 4:35. Klaassen is 11:05 behind Pinto with two days to go.

The 408-kilometer special wasn’t any easier for the bikes. Ricky Brabec and Skyler Howes both had crashes in the dunes, the former’s causing his airbag to deploy; Brabec has also been dealing with illness.

Preston Campbell’s tablet glitched out, costing him ten minutes as he fell to third overall. His teammate Martim Ventura still leads the Rally2 overall, but Campbell now has pressure from Toni Mulec for the final step on the podium. Mulec, the Dakar class winner, is 50 seconds behind Campbell.

Stage winners

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	202	Henk Lategan	Toyota Gazoo Racing	4:14:34
Challenger	16	302	Puck Klaassen	KTM X-Bow powered by G Rally Team	4:52:05
SSV	18	402	Jeremías González Ferioli	Can-Am Factory Team	4:54:00
Stock	20	504	Sara Price	Defender Rally	4:58:41

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	1	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	4:16:30
Rally2	9	84	Martim Ventura	Monster Energy Honda HRC	4:33:26
Rally3	37	79	Murun Purevdorj	Xraids Experience	6:11:08
Quad	30	171	Antanas Kanopkinas	CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team	5:48:21

Open

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
T1	DNF	N/A	No Finishers	N/A	DNF
T3	6	711	Emilio Rosselot	Rosselot Rally Team	6:05:57
T4	1	757	Gustavo Gallego	Ferioli Racing Team	5:26:45

Overall leaders

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	202	Henk Lategan	Toyota Gazoo Racing	9:39:59
Challenger	13	301	Alexandre Pinto	Old Friends Rally Team	10:33:17
SSV	17	402	Jeremías González Ferioli	Can-Am Factory Team	10:46:35
Stock	19	500	Stéphane Peterhansel	Defender Rally	11:05:48

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	1	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	9:36:41
Rally2	9	84	Martim Ventura	Monster Energy Honda HRC	10:21:47
Rally3	35	79	Murun Purevdorj	Xraids Experience	13:59:06
Quad	37	177	Lucas Dominguez	LD Racing Team	14:17:44

Open

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
T1	9	700	Fernando Hernandez	FH Racing	19:34:16
T3	8	711	Emilio Rosselot	Rosselot Rally Team	19:25:42
T4	1	757	Gustavo Gallego	Ferioli Racing Team	12:09:39

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