In an ultra-competitive Al Duwadimi to Al Salamiya pass covering 438km, which saw the stage lead swap between multiple runners, a four-way victory fight developed between Toyota’s Moraes, Audi’s Mattias Ekstrom, Overdrive’s Al-Rajhi and defending champion Nasser Al-Attiyah for Prodrive.
With a little over 100km to go, and with mostly dirt tracks left to navigate, the advantage was with Moraes but Al-Attiyah chopped into his lead to take top spot at the 352km checkpoint by four seconds.
