Today is rest day on the 2010 Dakar, so a good opportunity to check who’s where.

The first matter has to be Luca Manca, who after generously giving his wheel to Marc Coma on stage 5, had a serious accident early in stage 6. He remains in a critical condition.

At the front in the bikes it is, as expected, Cyril Despres and Marc Coma. Despres has a lead over Coma of over an hour. Coma only made it back up to 2nd position after stage 7 yesterday, the longest of the event. He was as low as 14th after stage 2, when he had a 22 minute penalty applied for speeding through a village. After mechanical problems on stage 3, and huge tyre damage on stage 5, Coma was 1 hour 16 minutes behind the leader. That’s been reducing since, but he’ll probably need Despres to have problems to be in with a chance of the win. It’s not unlikely.

Early leader David Casteu went out on stage 5, after a nasty fall, and stage 2 winner David Fretigne lost a lot of time on stage 3. So in current 3rd place it’s Portuguese Helder Rodrigues, the highest placed 450cc rider. Proving that consistency is key on the Dakar, 4th overall is Pal Anders Ullevalseter, who hasn’t finished higher than 5th on an individual stage. Francisco Lopez Contardo was running 2nd after stage 6, having won stage 5, but dropped to 5th after stage 7.

It’s going to script in the cars too, with three Volkswagens out on their own at the front. Carlos Sainz leads, with Nasser Al-Attiyah about 11 minutes behind him, and Mark Miller another 11 minutes back.

A couple of X-Raid BMWs – those of Guerlain Chicherit and Stephane Peterhansel – have had more problems, and find themselves a couple of hours behind the leader. Their team-mate Nani Roma went out on stage 3.

Robby Gordon has had mixed luck in the Hummer, winning stage 4, but losing almost four and a half hours over the first seven stages, including about two hours due to a mechanical problem on stage 7. He’s in 10th.