Toby Price's hopes of winning this year's Dakar Rally have taken a hit, with the 12th stage for motorcycles and quadbikes in Argentina called of for safety reasons due to the weather.
Price won the 11th stage to move within 40 minutes of overall bikes leader Matthias Walkner, but with only two stages now remaining, the 2016 champion's chances are more remote.
The cancellation of the 12th stage came a day after the Australian bounced back following a 10th stage on which he conceded almost 50 minutes getting lost in a river bed.
The cars and trucks continued as planned on Thursday and Carlos Sainz was content to drive cautiously and retain a good lead in the cars classification.
Sainz lost 18 minutes of his considerable lead over defending champion Stephane Peterhansel but was still a handy 45 minutes ahead of the Dakar Rally great.
After failing to finish the past five Dakars either because of crashes or mechanical failures, Sainz's decision not to take risks was understandable.
He let Peterhansel duel with eventual winner Nasser Al-Attiyah on the 523-kilometre special between Chilecito and San Juan, the first half of which was in mountains.
"We had a puncture and then we had some gearbox problems, but everything is fine because we've finished the stage which is the important thing," Sainz said.
"We were stuck in third gear at the end of the stage so we stayed in third. But there's still two more days ... two more days."
Sainz won the rally in 2010.
Peterhansel believed his shot at a third successive victory in a car, and eighth overall, was gone.
"It's finished now," he said. "For sure, we will try to secure second place, so we controlled the gap with Nasser. We drove a good stage. It was beautiful in the small canyons. The tracks were a little bit like WRC (world rally championship), but they were really clean and really nice to drive on."
The race ends on Saturday in Cordoba.
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