Seth Quintero is so close to his first World Rally-Raid Championship overall victory that he can almost taste it. However, just as close is Nasser Al-Attiyah seeking his tenth.

While neither was close enough to catch João Ferreira or Carlos Sainz for the Stage 4 win, both capitalized on Henk Lategan’s struggles to leapfrog him in the Desafío Ruta 40 overall. Quintero now leads, but only by seven seconds on Al-Attiyah with one day to go.

After winning Stage 3, Lategan entered Thursday with a 1:39 lead over his teammate Quintero and 5:28 over Al-Attiyah. However, he struggled as the first car on track and finished eighth. Quintero was fifth and Al-Attiyah third, dropping Lategan to third but still very much in contention as he trails Quintero by 1:53.

Al-Attiyah’s Dacia ally Sébastien Loeb, despite a myriad of punctures on Stage 1 that left him in an early hole, also has an outside shot at 5:24 back of the leader.

Carlos Sainz isn’t as fortunate due to his DNF earlier in the week, but still salvaged a stage win on Thursday by just seven seconds over Eryk Goczał. Coincidentally, the victory came at the expense of João Ferreira, who’s also out of overall contention after his Stage 3 crash and initially won before receiving a 20-minute penalty for leaving the neutralization zone nine minutes too early. This in turn dropped Ferreira to 18th for the day.

A day after topping Stock, Sara Price rolled her Defender onto its side just 12.2 kilometers in. Her teammates along with Alexandre Pinto stopped to help.

“We came into a sharp right and I didn’t realize just how tight it was,” Price explained. “After learning how to rotate this beast through corners like that in Portugal, I thought I could get that last little bit of rotation at full lock and drive down the wall without an issue. Today had other plans, and we turtled it.

“The good news is it was a slow rollover and not an aggressive crash at all. Saydiie (Gray) and I were out immediately and completely fine. The car suffered some cosmetic damage, but luckily our teammates started behind us and helped get us back on all four wheels.

“After a quick reset (and yes, realizing the door was not closed properly shortly after taking off and securing it), we continued on. I was honestly impressed with how tough this car is. Usually after a rollover you expect something to be affected, power steering, suspension, something but the car ran absolutely flawlessly for the rest of the day and got us all the way to the finish 305 kilometers later.”

Defender teammates Rokas Baciuška and Stéphane Peterhansel, Pinto, Mindaugas Sidabras, and Cristian and Marcos Baumgart all received time credits due to the delay caused by the crash. The FIA also found that Manuel Andújar, Pedro MacDowell, José Nogueira, and Juan Piferrer were halted in the bottleneck, though not long enough to warrant credits; this mattered little to MacDowell and Nogueira in particular as they finished first and second in SSV for the day.

Even with the adjusted time, Pinto could only finish third in Challenger and 8:18 behind Puck Klaassen. Matthias Walkner was six seconds back of Klaassen for Thursday, moving him past Pinto for the class lead. Walkner, seeking to win in his Challenger debut, holds a 3:37 gap on Pinto.

Monster Energy Honda pitched a podium sweep in RallyGP as Tosha Schareina led Ricky Brabec and Skyler Howes by 1:18 and 3:10, respectively. However, Daniel Sanders was just 3:16 behind Schareina in fourth and minimized the latter’s attempt to reduce the gap between them in the overall. Sanders still leads by 10:20.

HRC almost came close to going 1–2–3 in Rally2 as well with Martim Ventura and Bruno Crivilin. Preston Campbell, however, had a crash at KM 109 in the dust that relegated him to fifth. Toni Mulec also moved past Campbell for third overall, while Ventura has 4:34 on Crivilin.

Alexis Varagne bowed out with a mechanical issue at KM 60, while Julián Sánchez Dabin crashed one kilometer into the day on a Level 2-marked danger. Akira Miura and Denis Krotov both retired as well.

Stage winners

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	225	Carlos Sainz	Ford Racing	3:32:47
Challenger	16	302	Puck Klaassen	KTM X-Bow powered by G Rally Team	3:50:00
SSV	28	408	Pedro MacDowell	South Racing	4:22:54
Stock	22	500	Stéphane Peterhansel	Defender Rally	4:10:01

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	68	Tosha Schareina	Monster Energy Honda HRC	3:37:48
Rally2	7	84	Martim Ventura	Monster Energy Honda HRC	3:44:24
Rally3	37	79	Murun Purevdorj	Xraids Experience	5:19:05
Quad	30	171	Antanas Kanopkinas	CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team	4:58:43

Open

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
T1	11	700	Fernando Hernandez	FH Racing	6:15:00
T3	5	711	Emilio Rosselot	Rosselot Rally Team	4:37:23
T4	1	757	Gustavo Gallego	Ferioli Racing Team	4:22:08

Overall leaders

FIA

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
Ultimate	1	203	Seth Quintero	Toyota Gazoo Racing	13:21:28
Challenger	12	307	Matthias Walkner*	BBR Motorsport	14:27:58
SSV	17	402	Jeremías González Ferioli	Can-Am Factory Team	15:15:11
Stock	18	500	Stéphane Peterhansel	Defender Rally	15:15:49

FIM

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
RallyGP	1	1	Daniel Sanders	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	13:20:49
Rally2	9	84	Martim Ventura	Monster Energy Honda HRC	14:06:11
Rally3	31	79	Murun Purevdorj	Xraids Experience	19:18:11
Quad	33	177	Lucas Dominguez	LD Racing Team	19:47:59

Open

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
T1	9	700	Fernando Hernandez	FH Racing	41:49:16
T3	8	711	Emilio Rosselot	Rosselot Rally Team	24:03:25
T4	1	757	Gustavo Gallego	Ferioli Racing Team	16:31:47

Featured image credit: Irina Petrichei / Edophoto / DPPI / ASO