Norwegian Ivar Erik Tollefsen and Briton Quin Evans had another great day in their South African-built Nissan Navara on the Dakar Rally on Tuesday when they completed the demanding 496-km stage from Copiapo back to Copiapo in Chile in eighth place, 1hr 8min 59sec behind stage winners Carlos Sainz and Michel Perin in a factory Volkswagen Race Touareg.

In the process they improved their overall position after 11 days to sixth and are now the leading Nissan. Their Belgian Team Overdrive colleagues, Poland?s Krzysztof Holowczyc and Belgian Jean-Marc Fortin, lost time today and finished 25th on the stage, 2hr 28min 3sec behind Sainz and 1hr 19min 4sec adrift of Tollefsen. As a result they have dropped back a place to seventh overall, 37min 38sec behind Tollefsen.

Three of the four privateer Nissan Navaras — all built in South Africa by Nissan Motorsport — that started the Dakar in Buenos Aires on January 3 are still running after 11 days. Hungarian cross country champions Laszlo Palik and Gabor Darazsi continue to impress and are 10th overall after finishing 17th on Tuesday?s 10th stage.

Glyn Hall, general manager of Nissan Motorsport who is acting as team manager for the Belgian Overdrive outfit in South America, is a tired but proud man at this stage.

"This has been a really tough rally so far and there are still another four days to go, but I am really proud of the performance of our Nissans. Only one of the four has retired (Belgians Jacky Loomans and Mark Lauwers had clutch problems in the third Team Overdrive Navara on stage seven last Friday after running as high as 29th) and the other three are still going strong.

"To put this into context, consider that only one of the four factory Mitsubishi Lancers is still running and the main BMW X3 is also out."