The 447 km route from Alula to Ha’il was going to suit the riders and drivers that love the sand dunes and this was prime territory for Sanders and his GasGas Team bike.
Starting fifth on the road, Sanders got bogged down slightly at the start by some deeply soft sand but once that was cleared, he was quickly setting a ferocious pace and eating into the margins of his opposition. Soon after, he hit the front of the stage and passed through every checkpoint as the stage leader.
From that point on, he quickly reeled current outright leader Mason Klein in the general classification and cleared out from the rest of the field.
While he was extending his lead, some of his opponents were struggling to keep up, including fellow Australian, Toby Price.
The KTM rider came into stage three in second overall but dropped about six minutes during the early part of the stage and fell back to 11th on the road.
Price eventually recovered to work his way back up into the top ten, reaching as high as fourth at one point before settling for sixth place in the stage.
Toby Price is still within reach of Sanders, trailing him by 11 minutes after three stages.
The Monster Energy Honda Team rider was taken to Yanbu Hospital for further examination after suffering neck pain, becoming the second big name to retire from the race following the early exit of Sam Sunderland.
In the end, Sanders came through to take his first stage win of the race, 6’19” ahead of American Skyler Howes aboard his Husqvarna and 6’59” ahead of Klein, who benefitted from time bonuses following his stage win yesterday.
Overall in the general classification, Sanders is the new race leader by 4’04” over Klein in second, with Argentina’s Kevin Benavides 6’53” in third.
Toby Price has some work to do to catch his fellow Aussie, sitting eleven minutes behind in sixth overall.
While Sanders and Price had good days on two wheels, it was a disastrous day for Molly Taylor in the T4 SSV class. Having revelled in the sand dunes last year, Taylor and Andrew Short were keen to claw back some of the 30-minute deficit they had to current leaders Marek Goczal and Maciej Marton.
But the enthusiasm was short-lived, as they suffered the cruel fate that befell Sebastian Loeb yesterday with back-to-back punctures during the first half of the stage.
Molly Taylor and Andrew Short.
Over an hour was lost waiting before they recommenced their stage, but the heavens soon opened with a huge deluge of rain that caught many of the car field and the stage was neutralised and called off.
With the stage over, Taylor and Short finished 39th and have now dropped out of the top ten overall to 15th, two hours and four minutes behind Goczal and Marton.
In the Car component, it was a mechanically bruising day for both Carlos Sainz Snr and Nasser Al-Attiyah.
Sainz was leading the way for the opening 217 km, before a broken linking arm in the left rear suspension forced the Spaniard to pull to the side of the course and affect running repairs, losing a solid half hour in the process and the overall race lead.
The same issue also befell Sebastian Loeb, as he lost 20 minutes on top of the hour he lost yesterday.
Carlos Sainz Snr lost half an hour as he did running repairs to fix a broken linking arm on the left rear suspension. Photo: ASO/C. Lopez
The upside was he became the overall leader, following Sainz’s dramas.
The latter is now sitting in eighth place, 33 minutes behind.
With the stage neutralised and cancelled following the downpour just past half way, Guerlain Chichert bounced back yesterday’s disaster to claim the stage honours.
Tomorrow’s fourth stage is a 425 km loop around Ha’il, where the field will first navigate the terrain of the sand dunes before heading back into town on the sandy tracks that line this course.
Catch the third stage highlights tonight from 5 pm AEDT on SBS and anytime on SBS On Demand.
