Race leader and defending champion Hiroshi Masuoka forged further ahead in the Dakar Rally today after winning the longest stage of the 17-day competition.
The Mitsubishi driver, winner of the last two Dakar rallies, led French team mate Stephane Peterhansel by 11 minutes and 42 seconds after the 701-km seventh stage between Tan Tan in Morocco and Atar in Mauritania.
"I did not intend to push over the last two days, because over the rocky stages it is too easy to collect a puncture," the Japanese said after his second successive stage win.
"I had no problem with starting first on the road into Mauritania today. I like Mauritania very much. The car is working perfectly at the moment".
Scotland's Colin McRae was in third place overall, a position he had occupied at the start of the day after having a time penalty for speeding removed.
The 1995 world rally world champion, competing in his first Dakar, was 41 minutes adrift of Masuoka after being slowed when his Nissan was stuck in a dune 456 km into a stage across the Oumaghawaba Erg.
"It was going really well. Peterhansel passed us and we just sat behind him, which was great, but then we lost 20 minutes stuck in the sand," said the Scot, who also suffered two punctures.
Italian Miki Biasion, another former world champion, retired his Mitsubishi on his 46th birthday after barrel-rolling it yesterday. "I am very disappointed," he said in a team statement. "It was a freak accident. The car dug into a hole, flipped up on to its nose and we went into a series of rolls.
In the motorcycle category, Spain's overnight leader Isidre Esteve Pujol had a heavy fall after the first checkpoint and lost more than 10 minutes.
France's Richard Sainct, reigning champion and a three-times Dakar winner, won the stage despite struggling with an arm injury while French rider Cyril Despres, on a KTM, took the overall lead.
Tomorrow's 393-km eighth stage is a comparatively short run from Atar to Tidjikja.