Top Brit Sam Sunderland out of Dakar

Sam Sunderland the 22 year old, Dubai based Brit has been forced to retire from the 2012 Dakar. The Team Honda Europe rider who claimed a stunning seventh place finish on stage one of the event saw his Dakar aspirations end at the first checkpoint of the 295km timed special stage, when he suffered an electrical problem.

Despite the massive disappointment of having to retire, Sunderland has shown impressive pace in his first ever Dakar and was just three minutes off the pace of the leaders when he retired.

Fellow Brits Jago Pickering and Tobias Younger both had extremely long yesterday, but remain in the race. After starting at 5am to start the 487km liason stage, Pickering took 7h 50m 41s to complete the timed specialand ended the day in 151st  and now holds 153rd in the overall standings. Younger finished  156th meaning he currently lies 157th.