LA SERENA, Chile: Stephane Peterhansel snatched the lead on the Dakar Rally’s penultimate stage on Friday, just 24 hours after his Mini team had ordered him to abandon his challenge.

The French driver, who has six career wins in the motorcycling section of the grueling marathon and five on four wheels, now looks certain to claim a 12th title on Saturday’s final stage.

Overnight leader Nani Roma had a 5min 32sec advantage over his Mini teammate Peterhansel going into the 12th stage from El Salvador to La Serena in Chile.

And with Nasser Al-Attiyah in third, Mini ordered all three drivers to hold their positions on Friday to guarantee a team podium sweep.

But Roma lost pace throughout the day leaving Peterhansel with a 26-second overall lead going into Saturday’s final 157km timed run into Valparaiso.

On Thursday, Al-Attiyah led for much of the 605-kilometer leg, until with about 70 kilometers to go he hit a stone and was delayed for 20 minutes. Terranova came through for his second stage win of the race, 11 minutes ahead of Roma. Giniel de Villiers of South Africa, the runner-up last year, was third despite three punctures, and fifth overall and 20 minutes off a podium place. Peterhansel was fourth.

Roma ended five successive stages of losing time to Peterhansel by increasing his overall lead to more than five minutes, which would hardly be anything in terms of the race if the leaders were racing. Al-Attiyah was 56 minutes back in third.

The motorbike race was virtually over with Marc Coma winning his third stage to extend his overall lead to 52 minutes over Joan Barreda Bort, who broke his navigation system in a crash and rode the last half relying on trails. A third Spaniard, Jordi Viladoms, was fourth on the stage, and third overall, more than two hours off the pace.

Coma, who fell early, and titleholder Cyril Despres led throughout the stage. Despres, out of the running for more than a week, still holds hope of making the podium, being 24 minutes off third place.

He has one more challenging stage left to make a move, the 350-kilometer 12th through more dunes and desert south to La Serena.