Stephane Peterhansel grabbed the Dakar Rally lead on a dramatic stage nine in Mauritania which saw former leader Giniel De Villiers and title challenger Carlos Sainz both forced out of the reckoning.
De Villiers saw his title hopes go up in flames early in the day when an engine fire on his Volkswagen Touareg resulted in him needing a tow to the finish at Nema.
With Spaniard Sainz, also in a VW, suffering electrical problems on the stage between Tichit and Nema, the way was left open for Frenchman Peterhansel to take charge of proceedings.
Peterhansel was forced to make a short stop to fix a problem with the clutch on his Mitsubishi before continuing on to finish third on the stage and take the overall lead.
Peterhansel now heads the field by almost eight minutes ahead of Mitsubishi team-mate and fellow Frenchman Luc Alphand.
The stage victory belonged to another Frenchman, Jean-Louis Schlesser, whose Schlesser-Ford Buggy finished the day just ahead of Alphand and four minutes in front of Peterhansel.
With the third-placed driver over a hour behind the race looks a two-way battle between Peterhansel and Alphand.
Peterhansel admitted he did not celebrate when he passed De Villiers' stricken car.
He said: 'We had mixed emotions when we saw De Villiers' car on fire. Of course it's important for the overall rankings but we think he did not deserve it. He was doing his best Dakar and driving wonderfully well.
'A few kilometres further, we also had trouble of our own when we fried our clutch. We had to repair (it) and lost 15 minutes.
'It's nice to be in the lead for the first time in the rally.'
Spain's Marc Coma (KTM) leads the motorcycle category by 54 minutes from France's Cyril Despres (KTM) but both had to give second best to Janis Vinters (KTM) who took the stage win.
The Latvian was over seven minutes ahead of both Despres and Coma with what was his first Dakar stage victory.
Coma refused to take anything for granted despite holding a healthy lead over Despres.
Coma said: 'I don't want to and I won't think that I've won.
'I have seen too many things in this race to dare think it. I need to focus and prepare each stage as if it was the first one. This is the only attitude to have.'
Despres admitted he had been unable to fix his road book which had become damaged when a wire came loose.
Despres explained: 'This morning at the start of the special stage, there was a wire loose in the road book. I had to scroll through it manually all day.
'It's as if I had to twist candy-floss on a stick for seven hours straight at a fun fair. So I had to pay even closer attention. Additionally, being physically tired, I had to be extra focused.'
Dutchman Hans Stacey retained the truck category lead despite losing 15 minutes when his MAN suffered a flat tyre.
Dutchman Wulfert van Ginkel took the stage win in his GINAF by 12 and a half minutes from Stacey whose overall lead stands at three hours and seven minutes.
Tomorrow sees the competitors tackle stage ten which covers a 400km loop, starting and finishing in Nema.
NEMA, January 15 (2007 Dakar Rally)
Leading Final Positions after Stage 9 (Tichit-Nema; Special Stage: 494km)
Cars: 1 Jean-Louis Schlesser (Fra) Schles-Ford-Raid 5hrs 32mins 3secs, 2 Luc Alphand (Fra) Mitsubishi at 13secs, 3 Stephane Peterhansel (Fra) Mitsubishi at 4mins 14secs, 4 Hiroshi Masuoka (Jpn) Mitsubishi at 8:38, 5 Nani Roma (Spa) Mitsubishi at 14:27, 6 Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah (Qat) BMW at 14:34, 7 Carlos Sousa (Por) Volkswagen at 30:21, 8 Jutta Kleinschmidt (Ger) BMW at 31:09, 9 Sergey Shmakov (Rus) Buggy at 31:45, 10 Mark Miller (USA) Volkswagen at 31:52, 11 Robby Gordon (USA) Hummer at 33:09, 12 Bernard Errandonea (Fra) Buggy at 48:11, 13 Krzysztof Holowczyc (Pol) Nissan at 51:06, 14 Stephane Henrard (Bel) Volkswagen at 59:32, 15 Paulo Nobre (Bra) BMW at 1hr 12mins 17secs
Motorbikes: 1 Janis Vinters (Lat) KTM 6hrs 08mins 51secs, 2 Cyril Despres (Fra) KTM at 7mins 31secs, 3 Marc Coma (Spa) KTM at 7:53, 4 Pal Anders Ullevalseter (Nor) KTM at 7:53, 5 Jean De Azevedo (Bra) KTM at 9:34, 6 Chris Blais (USA) KTM at 10:47, 7 David Casteu (Fra) KTM at 15:53, 8 Isidre Esteve Pujol (Spa) KTM at 19:07, 9 Helder Rodrigues (Por) Yamaha at 28:09, 10 Jacek Czachor (Pol) KTM at 34:56, 11 Jaroslav Katrinak (Svk) KTM at 35:35, 12 Michel Marchini (Fra) Yamaha at 36:35, 13 Thierry Bethys (Fra) Honda at 37:40, 14 Henk Knuiman (Ned) Honda at 48:44, 15 Thomas Berglund (Swe) KTM at 49:06
Leading Overall Positions after Stage 9:
Cars: 1 Stephane Peterhansel (Fra) Mitsubishi 33hrs 43mins 23secs, 2 Luc Alphand (Fra) Mitsubishi at 7mins 50secs, 3 Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah (Qat) BMW at 1hr 23mins 21secs, 4 Jean-Louis Schlesser (Fra) Schles-Ford-Raid at 1:25:32, 5 Hiroshi Masuoka (Jpn) Mitsubishi at 2:13:44, 6 Mark Miller (USA) Volkswagen at 2:14:26, 7 Carlos Sousa (Por) Volkswagen at 4:11:29, 8 Robby Gordon (USA) Hummer at 6:20:59, 9 Stephane Henrard (Bel) Volkswagen at 7:18:55, 10 Pascal Thomasse (Fra) Buggy at 7:46:30, 11 Bernard Errandonea (Fra) Buggy at 7:49:12, 12 Nani Roma (Spa) Mitsubishi at 9:12:48, 13 Sergey Shmakov (Rus) Buggy at 9:34:49, 14 Edi Orioli (Ita) Isuzu at 9:40:49, 15 Jutta Kleinschmidt (Ger) BMW at 9:51:21
Motorbikes: 1 Marc Coma (Spa) KTM 36hrs 41mins 31secs, 2 Cyril Despres (Fra) KTM at 54mins 36secs, 3 David Casteu (Fra) KTM at 1hr 11mins 15secs, 4 Chris Blais (USA) KTM at 1:34:20, 5 Pal Anders Ullevalseter (Nor) KTM at 2:00:06, 6 Isidre Esteve Pujol (Spa) KTM at 2:32:11, 7 Helder Rodrigues (Por) Yamaha at 2:53:00, 8 Janis Vinters (Lat) KTM at 3:30:33, 9 Michel Marchini (Fra) Yamaha at 3:33:02, 10 Jaroslav Katrinak (Svk) KTM at 3:39:18, 11 Jacek Czachor (Pol) KTM at 3:44:34, 12 Thierry Bethys (Fra) Honda at 3:57:09, 13 Henk Knuiman (Ned) Honda at 4:27:14, 14 Fabien Planet (Fra) KTM at 5:06:52, 15 Miran Stanovnik (Slo) KTM at 6:18:16
