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While Cyril Despres and Stephane Peterhansel / Jean-Paul Cottret are strong leaders, there are still some exciting things to come. Will Jean-Marie Davoy be able to push back the Schlesser buggy attacks? Will Olivier Pain stand on the podium? Who will prevail in the Quads: Lionel Laine or Vincent Albir?

Thomas Bourgin, a 22 year old electrician from St Etienne (France) ranked 14th, didn't expect to enjoy this type of rally so much:” In the last two days, I've experienced everything! A lot of sand and Navigation yesterday, back to hard stones today. What a great learning curve! “After this fourth stage, He has taken a liking to this type of event.”I come from the enduro and cross country. I want to progress in rally now. My next challenge will be Tunisia 2010. First though....to finish well here.”

Bruno Da Costa knows he can not repeat last year's achievement (he was third, overall) “The level has gone up a notch. All the top drivers are here. I'll be lucky to finish 7th or 8th with my 450, even then I'd be delighted.” At the end of the 218 km loop, Bruno added: "yesterday we were in sand, I love that, today though, it was fast on the flat bits and then we hit the stones, it became very technical, it must have rained a lot recently because of the numerous gullies and they require great care”.

It's in the most technical parts of the stage that some competitors really prove themselves, Eric Schiano said: "I have the smallest bike in the Shamrock: a Shercko 250. So hitting the trial was my thing but inevitably I'm behind on the fast tracks”. Most competitors had never imagined that the Zagora area offered such a playground of various terrains. Even Stéphane Peterhansel was surprised: "We went through such beautiful but narrow places that I wonder how the trucks would get through. I was to down to 20 or 30 kph, in some places, weird!” But his fans can rest assured, the “king Peter" has many more opportunities to show us what is under the bonnet of his BMW X-Raid.

Former biker himself, Stephane Peterhansel remains very attentive to the performance of Olivier Pain third in today's stage and fourth overall. The Norwegian Pal Anders Ullevalseter (KTM) won this stage closely followed by Cyril Despres(KTM) just 11 seconds behind him. Olivier came in 1'50'' after that. Cyril Despres could not give his full potential because of an unwinding problem on his road-book; he nevertheless remains a strong leader with 11'43 ahead of Marc Coma and 12'25 ahead of Ullevalseter. Olivier Pain checks in fourth position (22'48) overall, and Jordi Viladoms fifth (24'06).

The Sunday leader, Jordi in an act of sportsmanship offered his back wheel to Coma. And sadly the Spaniard Juan Barreda dropped out after a fall, he'd finished 3rd in 2nd stage.

Quad bikes: third victory for Vincent Albira (Yamaha) who finished sixteenth in the bike/quad scratch. He beat Lionel Laine and Camellia Liparoti. The match between the top quad bikers continues as Lionel Laine (KTM 525) is set to become world champion, he retains 17'55 ahead of the winner of the day. Between them, the last two stages promise to be hotly contested.

Enduro Cup: the Frenchman Antoine Didier leads ahead of the Belgian Lambert Wery, Russians Dmitry Pavlov, Sergey Ugmnov and Donald Hatton. In the Overall classification, the first three (in order: Pavlov, Didier Wery) are within 18 minutes of each other.....promising finale!

Only two legs left and in the car category Stephane Peterhansel is serene. While conducting various tests on their BMW X-Raid, the duo Peterhansel-Cottret continue their flawless sprint, 72 minutes ahead over the other BMW couple relegating them to a solid second place (Leonid Novitsky, Andreas Schulz).

Another good run for the Schlesser Buggy with the team consisting of Francois Lethier and Jean-Marie Lurquin (39'32), they are third, today. The Belgian team, Joost Vancauwenberg and Steven Vyncke (Nissan), finished fourth; placing fifth Jean-Marie Davoy-Marc Jourdan who had so gracefully “surfed” their Buggy MD into third overall on Tuesday. That's where they stay in tonights overall, but close behind, very close actually, François Lethier and Jean-Marie Lurquin (4th) are just 9 small minutes behind. This promises to be another great duel in prospect over the last two stages.

Elisabete Jacinto (truck) wins! (15th scratch time of the stage) but Tomas Tomecek who finished four places below, continues to lead the category. The Czech driver associated with Vojtech Moravek on Tatra advanced to seventh place in the car/truck cat.overal. In the T2 category, dominance of Toyota: Gérard-Luc Sicre/ Laurent Flament. It is also a Toyota that of Yvan-Pierre Dard and his teammate Christel Paro who leads the Open category.

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