TOBY Price played second fiddle to fellow Australian Daniel Sanders in the third stage of the Dakar Rally in Saudia Arabia and slipped to sixth but insisted there was plenty of time to play catch-up.
Sanders fared best in treacherous conditions to win the stage and take the overall lead.
The Red Bull GasGas rider is more than four minutes clear of the overnight leader, young American Mason Klein, with 11 minutes back.
The Australians rode together towards the end of Tuesday's stage.
"Me and Price pushed all the way to the end," Sanderers said. "We broke away from the guys in the dunes. I was surprised that the big kangaroo could still follow me! It was good, because we were two Aussies pushing through at the end and to pull away from some fast guys is pretty good.
"Of course, the Aussies have the strongest spirit. We've got some good natural desert skills. I think me and Price have come from a good background, with a lot of fast racing in Australia and it's paying off here on the Dakar."
Not all riders were able to complete the stage as racing was cut short due to rainstorms preventing medical helicopters from flying.
Organisers said "calculations will be made for each of the riders in accordance with the average accomplished on the first part of the stage in order to attribute a finishing time to them."
Price, who grew up in Maitland and is a two-time winner of the Dakar, took a cautious approach.
"We really didn't make any mistakes and we pushed where we could, where we felt comfortable," he said. "We probably lost a little bit of time today, but it's all part of it - we're only on day three. There's a long way to go yet."
At the first refuelling point, after 240km, Sanders led 2020 winner Ricky Brabec by five seconds, but 34km later the American suffered a fall that put him out of the race. He was taken to hospital with back and neck pain.
With defending champion Sam Sunderland airlifted out of the race on the first stage two of the last three winners are now out. The 2021 champion, Argentina's Kevin Benavides, is third.
Sanders said the start of the stage "was really hard through the deep sand and rock" while rain, rare in Saudi Arabia, caused the problems later on.
All the categories were curtailed in some way by the weather with the cars halted at the 240km point.
Toyota's defending champion Nasser Al-Attiyah took the lead after Audi's Carlos Sainz hit trouble.
Spaniard Sainz had led the Qatari by two minutes and 12 seconds overnight but lost 45 minutes on repairs to the rear left suspension of his electric hybrid car during the run from AlUla to Ha'il.
The 60-year-old triple Dakar champion then lost more time with navigational problems and dropped out of the top 10.
French driver Guerlain Chicherit won the stage, overall Al-Attiyah leads Saudi contender Yazeed Al Rajhi by 13 minutes and 19 seconds with 11 stages still to come.
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