Before the day of rest that the Dakar Rally competitors will be spending in Antofagasta on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, Cyril Despres has won stage seven as Marc Coma has finally returned to being his fiercest contender in the overall standings.

Some stages can alone represent several episodes of a race. The stage taking the Dakar contenders to Antofagasta today – with its 600km of special stage – was precisely a mix of different terrains and led to many events.

Coma and Despres who had started first paid the price for a while for their hesitations in a vast sand dunes area, the riders behind them ended up catching up. At the different intermediary check points both two-time winners ended up losing ground and giving opportunities to Pal Anders Ullevalseter (1st at CP1 and CP2), David Frétigné (1st at CP4) and Francisco Lopez (1st at CP5 and CP6).

But in the last 150km the two masters of the bike race ended up growing the gap on the track again and got back to their natural positions. Time then for a good game play between France and Spain, 20km from the finish Coma took the lead for just 10 short seconds. But in the grand finale, despite the pain inflicted by a broken shock absorber earlier on, Despres crossed the finish line with the best time of the day and won his 22nd stage on a Dakar keeping at the same time the lead in the overall standings 1h06 ahead of Coma.

Spaniard Coma is now ahead of Helder Rodrigues and Lopez in the standings to sit second, achieving the easiest part of the mission he has identified for himself since his engine problems and the penalty he was given at the start of the event.

The battle will resume following a rest day tomorrow.