The SA-built privateer Nissan Navaras continue to hold their own on the Dakar Rally.

For the third stage in a row the privateer Nissan Navaras of Poland's Krzysztof Holowczyc and Norway's Ivar Erik Tollefsen have held their top 10 positions overall in the Dakar Rally Argentina-Chile. With 10 days of the world?s leading marathon cross country race behind them and still another five to go before the finish in Buenos Aires on Saturday, the South African-built Nissans have held their own in the toughest of conditions.

Monday's 537-km stage from La Serena to Copiapo featured a 430-km in the north of Chile and ended with a testing 20km of sand dunes. Holowczyc and Belgian co-driver Jean-Marc Fortin finished eighth overall, 26min 48sec behind winners and overall race leaders Carlos Sainz of Spain and Michel Perin of France in a Volkswagen Touareg. They remain sixth overall, well behind the diesel-engined factory Volkswagen but still second overall behind the fifth-placed Hummer of American Robbie Gordon in the general classification for petrol-engined cars.

Tollefsen and English co-driver Quin Evans are enjoying one of their most successful Dakars together in the same Navara in which they contested the 2008 South African off road championship. They were ninth on Monday?s stage, finishing 13 minutes behind Holowczyc and Fortin, and kept their seventh place overall some 41 minutes behind their Team Overdrive team-mates.

Hungarian privateers Laszlo Palik and Gabor Darazsi in their South African-built Navara, had problems on the stage and finished in 16th place, 38min behind Tollefsen and Evans. They have now dropped one position to 12th overall.

"Today's was the toughest stage yet and was the first of the three most challenging stages of the Dakar," said Glyn Hall, general manager of Nissan Motorsport in South Africa and team manager for the Belgian Team Overdrive in South America.

"Krzysztof and Ivar continue to impress ? in fact, Ivar was running up with the factory Volkswagens early in the stage. This rally is extremely hard on the service crews, who are operating in what is literally a dust bowl. There is dust everywhere, even in the tents in the bivouac at night. It's difficult to sleep and we?re all taking strain."

Stage 10 on Tuesday takes the survivors on a 690-km loop from Copiapo back to Copiapo and includes the longest special stage of the rally at 670km through the heart of the Atacama desert.