Summary Sebastien Loeb stays in the overall Dakar Rally lead with a paper-thin 0.42sec advantage.
SAN SALVADOR DE JUJUY (AFP) - Defending champion Stephane Peterhansel led a Peugeot sweep of the top-three finishing spots on the third stage of the Dakar Rally on Wednesday with teammate Sebastien Loeb narrowly retaining the overall lead.
Peterhansel, 51, seeking a 13th career triumph in the gruelling 9,000km endurance event, finished the San Miguel de Tucuman to San Salvador de Jujuy stage in Argentina in 4 hours 18 min 17 sec.
Carlos Sainz, the 2010 champion, was second, coming home 1 min 54 sec behind the Frenchman Peterhansel. Third was nine-time world rally champion Loeb at 3 min 8 sec off the lead.
Loeb stays in the overall lead with a paper-thin 0.42sec advantage over Sainz and a 4.18sec gap on Peterhansel.
"It s a really good day for Peugeot. We ve lost, not completely but probably, two rivals in Nasser Al Attiyah and Giniel de Villiers, so it s a little bit clearer at the front of the race," said Peterhansel, who had struggled in the first two stages, finishing seventh and 12th.
Wednesday s stage was split into two sections with the second part over a 124km timed run seeing the competitors race at altitude hitting 5,000m for the first time in the 2017 event.
However, it was a test too far for Toyota, who are seen as Peugeot s major rivals for the title.
Longtime stage leader Nasser Al Attiyah of Qatar, the 2011 and 2015 champion who was just 28 seconds behind Loeb overnight, came to a halt for over an hour when he damaged a wheel on his vehicle.
Toyota teammates Giniel de Villiers, the 2005 winner, and 2004 champion Nani Roma also hit technical trouble on the exhausting climb.
Spain s Joan Barreda won the third stage of the motorcycle event by more than 10 minutes to take the overall lead.
The Honda rider dominated the 780km (364km timed) stage in 4 hours 22 min 41 sec.
Overnight leader and defending champion Toby Price of Australia was close to 23 minutes off the pace on his KTM.
"I was lucky and I did a good job. It was a really tough stage but I kept my focus during all the stage, so I am really happy with the work," said Barreda.
"It s still too early to talk about winning. There are still seven thousand kilometres to go."
Britain s Sam Sunderland is second overall at 11 min 20sec behind Barreda while Paulo Goncalves of Portugal holds third spot at 14min 42sec.
Thursday s fourth stage, over 521km from San Salvador de Jujuy to Tupiza in Bolivia will be raced to altitudes of around 3,500m.
