Carlos Sainz benefited from race leader Yazeed Al-Rajhi's title-ending crash and Stephane Peterhansel breaking down in the desert, to take the provisional lead after the first part of the Dakar Rally sixth stage on Thursday.
The stage is an unprecedented two-day marathon around Shubaytah – a 780km loop in the kingdom's vast Empty Quarter with more than 600km of specials for motorcycles and nearly 550km for cars.
On Thursday, it was the veteran Spaniard Sainz who showed his mettle and was leading when the day's action stopped at 4pm local time with competitors spending the night at the nearest of seven bivouacs dotted around the dunes.
The 61-year-old three-time Dakar winner leads the general standings by more than a quarter of an hour on his Audi teammate Matthias Ekstrom of Sweden.
The Prodrive drivers are trailing with Qatar's defending champion Nasser Al-Attiyah losing time and sitting some 22 minutes off the pace.
A dune surfing epic with @AlAttiyahN in Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter 🏄♂️ #Dakar2024 pic.twitter.com/fyKe3ee7mi
— DAKAR RALLY (@dakar) January 11, 2024
France's Sebastien Loeb remains fourth overall at almost 37min.
Nine-time world rally champion Sainz had attempted a daring tactical move on Wednesday, deliberately losing 40 minutes to start behind the leaders on Thursday, to follow their tracks and avoid opening in the dunes.
Al-Rajhi and Peterhansel both lost out.
The 42-year-old Saudi Toyota driver Al-Eahji started the morning leading the standings but disaster struck when he was unable to repair his Hilux after an accident which occurred 51km into the stage.
"The car did a barrel roll and now is damaged," explained Al-Rajhi, who finished third in last year's race.
And Dakar Rally veteran Peterhansel was stranded in the middle of the desert at midday, the victim of a hydraulic failure.
"We had a puncture and the hydraulic jack system started playing up," said Peterhansel, who notched up a record-equalling 50th car stage win on Sunday.
"We don't have a hand jack so we don't know how we’re going to change the wheel," he said.
"With the damage to the hydraulic system, I've lost the power steering and I don’t know how we're going to manage to pull through."
Whatever happens, the Dakar is lost to the man with a record 14 victories, six on motorcycles and eight in cars.
Thursday and Friday's 48-hour stage is the last big part of the first week, before the rest day on Saturday in Riyadh.
In the motorbike category, Frenchman Adrien van Beveren led the sixth stage at the midway point with his American Honda teammate Ricky Brabec moving into the overall race lead.
Van Beveren finished the day 1min 21sec ahead of Brabec with Australian Toby Price third at 1min 49sec.
Chilean rider Pablo Quintanilla, winner of Wednesday's stage, ran out of fuel about 10km from the first refuelling point, losing almost an hour and a half.