HARADH, Saudi Arabia – Mathieu Serradori laid claim to his first Dakar Rally stage victory on Monday.

Driving the South African-built Century CR6 buggy, Serradori won the 474 kilometer stage by besting two-time Formula One champion Fernando Alonso by a little more than four minutes.

“I’m absolutely delighted. It’s a wonderful story,” said Serradori. “Yesterday’s stage was very complicated – we made a mistake and paid a heavy price. This morning, we pulled our socks up and left everyone behind us.”

The runner-up stage finish for Alonso was his best showing to date during his inaugural Dakar Rally. Orlando Terranova ended the stage in third, more than six minutes behind Serradori.

In the overall rankings, X-Raid driver Carlos Sainz continues to lead the car division by nearly seven minutes over Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Nasser Al-Attiyah.

In the truck division, Kamaz driver Andrey Karginov earned his third-straight stage victory to edge even closer to locking up his second Dakar Rally victory. He now leads the truck class standings by more than 27 minutes.

The SxS class stage was won by Reinaldo Varela, but behind him stage runner-up Francisco Lopez Contardo made up 16 minutes on class leader Casey Currie when Currie was briefly sidelined by a broken axle.

Entering the day more than 30 minutes behind Currie, Contardo is now less than 16 minutes behind Currie.

The motorcycle and quad divisions were given Monday off after the death of motorcycle competitor Paulo Goncalves on Sunday.