Spaniard Carlos Sainz led a Volkswagen clean sweep of the top three positions in the Dakar Rally as the former world rally champion finished ahead of South African Giniel De Villiers and Portugal's Carlos Sousa.
Frenchman Luc Alphand was seventh and fellow countryman and Mitsubishi driver Stephane Peterhansel was 11th as the top two in the rally vied for the overall advantage.
Peterhansel has a slim lead of seven minutes over Alphand going into tomorrow's final stage after dropping four minutes to his countryman today.
Brazilian Jean De Azevedo took his second stage win on the Dakar, and his first this year.
The KTM rider admitted he had found the stage harder than he had expected.
He said: 'For the last day of the race, it was a hard stage. There were a lot of parallel trails and I had to pay close attention to the road book.
'Since the beginning of the rally when I lost all my options of being in the top five, I focused on the day-to-day racing of each stage.
'It's my second stage victory on the Dakar after the one of 2005. I am very happy and proud too because I am the only Brazilian to have won something on the Dakar.'
The overall standings in the motorcycle category see KTM occupy the top two spots as Cyril Despres heads fellow Frenchman David Casteu by 36 minutes.
The truck category stage win went to France's Philippe Jacquot (MAN) as Dutchman Hans Stacey leads the overall standings by over three hours.
Tomorrow sees the final stage of the rally as the competitors cover a 93km loop which starts and finishes in Dakar.
Leading final positions from stage 13 (Tambacounda to Dakar 225 km):
Cars: 1 Carlos Sainz (Spa) Volkswagen, 2 hours 21mins, 2secss, 2 Giniel de Villiers (Rsa) Volkswagen 2:21:09, 3 Carlos Sousa (Por) Volkswagen 2:21:47, 4 Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah (Qat) BMW 2:22:54, 5 Robby Gordon (USA) Hummer 2:22:56, 6 Mark Miller, (USA) Schles-Ford-Raid 2:23:04, 7 Luc Alphand (Fra) Mitsubishi 2:25:24, 8 Jutta Kleinschmidt (Ger) Volkswagen 2:26:40, 9 Jean-Louis Schlesser (Fra) Schles-Ford-Raid 2:27:00, 10 Miguel Barbosa (Por) Proto 2:29:02, 11 Stephane Peterhansel (Fra) Cottret (Fra) Mitsubishi 2:29:23, 12 Klever Kolberg (Bra) Mitsubishi 2:29:44, 13 Hiroshi Masuoka (Jpn) Mitsubishi 2:32:25, 14 Andris Dambis (Lat) OSC 2:36:42, 15 Leonid Novitskiy (Rus) Mitsubishi 2:37:30
Bikes: 1 Jean De Azevedo (Bra) KTM 2hrs 37mins 46secs, 2 Jacek Czachor (Pol) KTM 2:39:51, 3 Janis Vinters (Lat) KTM 2:42:51, 4 Chris Blais (USA) KTM 2:42:58, 5 Cyril Despres (Fra) KTM 2:44:49, 6 David Casteu (Fra) KTM 2:48:02, 7 Paulo Goncalves (Por) Honda 2:49:13, 8 Michel Marchini (Fra) Yamaha 2:51:27, 9 Pal Anders Ullevalseter (Nor) KTM 2:54:24, 10 Binars Vinters (Lat) KTM 2:54:38, 11 Gilles Algay (Fra) Yamaha 2:54:51, 12 Eric Croquelois (Fra) Yamaha 2:55:00, 13 Olivier Pain (Fra) Yamaha 2:55:05, 14 Miran Stanovnik (Slo) KTM 2:55:15, 15 Fabien Planet (Fra) KTM 2:56:11
Overall Standings after stage 14
Cars: 1 Stephane Peterhansel (Fra) 45hours 42mins 45secs, 2 Luc Alphand (Fra) Mitsubishi 45:50:01, 3 Jean-Louis Schlesser (Fra) Schles-Ford-Raid 47:19:09, 4 Nasser Al Attiyah (Qat) BMW 47:46:01, 5 Mark Miller (USA) Volkswagen 47:54:13, 6 Hiroshi Masuoka (Jpn) Mitsubishi 48:28:16, 7 Carlos Sousa (Por) Volkswagen 50:56:07, 8 Robby Gorden (USA) Hummer 52:49:36, 9 Carlos Sainz (Spa) Volkswagen 53:11:38, 10 Stephane Henrard (Bel) Volkswagen 54:12:12, 11 Giniel De Villiers (Rsa) Volkswagen 54:30:29, 12 Bernard Errandonea (Fra) Buggy 55:06:54, 13 Nani Roma (Spa) Mitsubishi 55:21:07, 14 Sergey Shmakov (Rus) Buggy 55:54:46, 15 Jutta Kleinschmidt (Ger) BMW 56:13:38
Bikes: 1 Cyril Despres (Fra) KTM 51hrs 25mins 49secs, 2 David Casteu (Fra) KTM 52:01:58, 3 Chris Blais (USA) KTM 52:18:50, 4 Pal Anders Ullevalseter (Nor) KTM 53:06:01, 5 Helder Rodrigues (Por) Yamaha 53:58:27, 6 Janis Vinters (Lat) KTM 54:12:32, 7 Michel Marchini (Fra) Yamaha 54:26:39, 8 Thierry Berthys (Fra) Honda 54:53:59, 9 Jaroslav Katrinak (Svk) KTM 55:07:23, 10 Jacek Czachor (Pol) KTM 55:49:50, 11 Henk Knuiman (Ned) Honda 56:04:15, 12 Isidre Esteve Pujol (Spa) KTM 56:21:19, 13 Fabien Planet (Fra) KTM 56:39:42, 14 Miran Stanovnik (Slo) KTM 58:01:43, 15 Einars Vinters (Lat) KTM 58:34:30
