Despres wins Dakar ninth stage to regain lead

Cyril Despres regained the upper hand in his ding dong Dakar Rally battle with motorcycle rival Marc Coma here on Tuesday as defending car champion Nasser Al-Attiyah was forced out of the race on the ninth stage. The 31-year-old Qatari had to give up the ghost when his temperamental Hummer suffered more mechanical problems - American Robby Gordon in another Hummer won the stage to slice more time off overall leader Stephane Peterhansel's advantage. Three-time bike champion Despres, riding a KTM, responded to 2011 winner Coma's win on Monday when taking the 556km stage from Antofogasta which finished with a dramatic descent down an 800 metre high dune. Despres, who timed 5hr 04min 33sec with Spaniard Coma coming in 3min 54sec behind, replaced the Spaniard at the top of the overall rankings - both were later penalised 15 minutes by race stewards in those standings for changing their engines during the stage. Despres holds a lead of 2min 28sec and the 37-year-old Frenchman said that he had emerged from his terrible day on Monday in a positive frame of mind. "After a difficult day yesterday when you start to doubt, I had to get back to winning ways," said Despres. "We came into this looking at a battle for seconds or minutes. It's very competitive. "Like any top level sportsman, if you don't like confrontation or squeezing the last ounces of strength out of yourself, then you're not ready for a fight. But, as for me, I'm up for it." Coma too was revelling in the engrossing tussle and even more motivated to win as he was bitter about his fellow KTM rider having had his deficit from Monday's stage halved by the stewards. "We're coming to the crunch part of the rally. Cyril is a major rival and we do battle over every single kilometre. But I think it's interesting, it's sport," said the Spaniard. Gordon, 43, had been highlighted by Peterhansel as the dangerman after Monday's stage and the American didn't do anything to dissuade him from that point of view as he further ate into the French Dakar legend's lead. Gordon, whose best finish was third in the 2009 edition, timed 4hr 35min 21sec, a min 38sec faster than 46-year-old Peterhansel while Monday's stage winner Spanish driver Nani Roma was third 8min 37sec adrift. Peterhansel - a six-time motorbike and three-time car champion - holds an advantage of almost six minutes on the NASCAR veteran entering the final five days of the race. Gordon said that he had no option but to attack in what remained of the Rally but he sounded full of confidence. "We're in a different position to him (Peterhansel)," said Gordon. "He has to conserve his time and I've got to make it. We've got four days left, four real days of racing left (the final stage on Sunday is just 29km long) and the Hummer's strong." Peterhansel admitted that Gordon had got the better of him but took the retirement of Al-Attiyah as a boost for him and his Mini team. "We're going to fight to hold on to the slender lead we have over him (Gordon)," said the Frenchman. "I started to wonder if Nasser was having technical problems when I saw that he wasn't catching me up. "It means that Gordon is on his own now and for us that makes things a little bit better. There are flaws with the Hummers. I just hope that we'll be able to take advantage of them." Gordon's joy was in stark contrast to that of his fellow Hummer pilot Al-Attiyah who had been plagued by problems since the start in Mar Del Plata on New Year's Day. He lined up for Tuesday's ninth stage in sixth position overall, eight minutes behind Peterhansel, having struggled to make up the loss of 10 minutes on the opening stage. Al-Attiyah, who is hoping to compete in his third Olympic Games in shooting at London 2012, lost more precious time when he was forced to make three unscheduled stops. Initial reports suggest his American-backed Hummer had suffered problems with its alternator. He decided to call time on his title defence at the 174km mark of the timed special in a race in which, despite his mechanical gremlins, he still managed to post the fastest times in the second and seventh stages.