Sainz in control

Carlos Sainz closed in on victory in the Dakar Rally as he won Tuesday's 10th stage.

The Volkswagen driver, a former two-time world rally champion, came out on top on the 238-kilometre run from La Serena to Santiago to claim his 16th career stage win and his first of this year's event.

France's Stephane Peterhansel finished second for BMW, 28 seconds behind Sainz, with America's Mark Miller coming in third in another Volkswagen.

Nasser Al-Attiyah, who currently lies second in the overall standings, could only place fourth and he is now over 10 minutes behind his Spanish team-mate having given up 1min 40secs.

The Qatari driver admitted he had endured a tough day, telling autosport.com: "It was very, very dangerous, not easy, because there were a lot of corners, a lot of slippery stuff."

"For me it was not a good feeling and I'm really happy to have finished without any problems."

"I'm quite happy. For me today it was very stressful because we opened the road and it was not easy. But it's okay, I'm quite happy for today."

Marc Coma took another stage win in the bike class but the Spaniard is well off the pace after problems earlier in the event, France's Cyril Despres holds a lead of 1hr 22min 49secs overall.

Russia's Vladimir Chagin continued his inexorable march towards victory in the truck category as he extended his already healthy aggregate lead with another stage win.

Juan Manuel Gonzalez Corominas took the glory in the quad class but Argentina's Marcos Patronelli looks destined for overall honours as he leads by almost two-and-a-half hours.