Race leader Carlos Sainz crashed out of the Dakar Rally on Thursday when his Volkswagen tumbled into a ravine, robbing the double world rally champion of certain victory.

The Spaniard had started the 12th stage with a 27-minute lead over his American Volkswagen teammate Mark Miller and was comfortably on course for a maiden win in the gruelling event on Saturday.

But that was before disaster struck after 79km of the 220km stage.

"We couldn't see. The front wheels were in the hole and then we toppled over on the front and then the roof. I braked but I couldn't stop," said Sainz who hurt his right shoulder in the crash.

Co-pilot Michel Perin suffered a broken arm and both men were airlifted back to the bivouac at the stage's start in Fiambala.

"Luckily I wasn't driving fast. If we were attacking then it would not have been very pleasant," added Sainz who had won six of the stages of this year's event.

Perin was left ruing a missed turn and a road sign that was not as clear as he thought it should have been.

"We had made a small mistake in the first part," said Perin. "We took the wrong direction at a Y crossing but it was not too bad because we did end up on the right trail.

"We were tailing (Volkswagen team-mate) Giniel De Villiers who had started about 10sec after us so it was still sort of okay.

"Then there was a hidden waypoint with a wadi indicated as 'danger'. But it should have been indicated as 'extremely dangerous'.

"By the way, the car behind us, Nani Roma's (Mitsubishi) car, would have fallen in the same hole as we did if we had not been there already. I just have something broken in my arm, but I'm alright."

At the start of the stage, Sainz was 27min 31sec ahead of Miller with South African De Villiers almost 14min further adrift in third.

It was De Villiers who eventually won the stage, also taking over top spot in the overall standings from Sainz.

Miller finished in second spot, 16min 17sec off the South African's pace, and now lies 2min 35sec adrift in second place in the overall standings.

Sainz, who was competing in his third Dakar, with his best showing a ninth-placed finish in 2007, was the latest in a long line of big names forced out of this year's race.

Defending champion Stephane Peterhansel and his Mitsubishi teammates, and fellow former winners Luc Alphand and Hiroshi Masuoka, all pulled out in the first week.

Early leader Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar, in a BMW, was disqualified.

Meanwhile, Frenchman Cyril Despres, riding a KTM, won the motorbike section of the stage.

It was a third stage win for Despres, who claimed victory 1min 23sec ahead of Spanish team-mate Marc Coma, who remains atop the overall standings, 1hr 29:48min ahead of the Frenchman.

Frenchman David Fretigne, riding a Yamaha, overcame a serious oil leak problem to remain third in the overall standings.

With just two days of riding left, Fretigne's lost 10min 28sec has left him 1hr 33:55min behind Coma.