Cornejo completed the test the fastest. Argentinian Kevin Benavides finished second at 44 seconds, Spaniard Joan Barreda Bort was third at almost 3 minutes. Van Beveren conceded more than 12.5 minutes to the Chilean, but the Frenchman took the lead in the standings. The ‘Little Prince’, as the 31-year-old Frenchman is nicknamed, has a lead of more than 5 minutes on three pursuers: the Austrian Matthias Walkner, Benavides and Sunderland.
In the cars, Sébastien Loeb was victorious. The nine-time world rally champion, who is still chasing his first Dakar title, recorded his second stage win in this edition. The 47-year-old Frenchman was 5.26 minutes faster than Nasser Al-Attiyah, the leader in the standings. Loeb moved back up to second in the overall standings, now 45 minutes behind Al-Attiyah. The 51-year-old racing driver from Qatar has already been the best in Dakar three times. Loeb’s best result is second place, in 2017.
The Russian Anton Shibalov won the seventh stage in the trucks. The Kamaz trucker was 1.37 faster than his compatriot and teammate Eduard Nikolaev. Martin van den Brink finished third at 4.25 in Team De Rooy’s Iveco truck. Classification leader Dmitri Sotnikov lost almost 7 minutes, but still has more than 5 minutes ahead of Nikolayev.