Spaniard Sainz, 42, who impressed so much at this stage of last year's event, won the 67km timed section of Sunday's 545 km trek from Portimao in Portugal to Malaga in Spain in 59:26 in his Volkswagen Touareg.

Portuguese driver Sousa meanwhile, in his Phoenix Motorsport-run Touareg, could only manage the ninth quickest time, but can at least console himself with the knowledge that

Spanish driver Carlos Sainz drives after finishing the second stage of the Lisbon-Dakar rally in port of Malaga, southern Spain January 7, 2007.[Reuters]

Sainz' Volkswagen team-mates were not so fortunate as Giniel de Villiers dropped from second to third, American Mark Miller fell to seventh after setting a time outside the top ten, and Ari Vatanen ?C who began the day third ?C lost over an hour when his car stopped while going through water stream 17km from the end of the stage.

But while the German manufacturer's drivers suffered, Mitsubishi's profited, and none more so than Nani Roma, who moved up to fourth, and two-time winner Stephane Peterhansel in fifth.

Guerlain Chicherit maintained sixth place in his X-Raid BMW, while his team-mate Nasser Al-Attiyah is ninth and, after a dreadful opening day, defending champion Luc Alphand climbed from 17th to 12th in his Mitsubishi.

Bikes ?C Rodrigues snatches lead

The Portuguese domination continued in the two-wheeled section as Helder Rodrigues won a Dakar stage for the first time in his life and moved into the lead of the event on his Yamaha.

Rodrigues, 27, set the pace in 1:02:44, a minute and three seconds faster than overnight leader Ruben Faria, who fell to second overall, 47 seconds behind, after recovering from a crash early in the test.

Rodrigues said: "This is special. I did not have a single problem. In my own mind, I knew I had to attack early to get a stage win, but really thought yesterday was my chance, but this is great.

"Now we go to Africa, and there, I just have to see what I can do."

Spaniard Isidre Esteve Pujol and Frenchman David Casteu maintained third and fourth overall on their KTMs after finishing in the same positions on the stage.

Fabien Planet moved into a surprise sixth place on his KTM ahead of two more excellent early performers, Thierry Bethys and Johan Street, on the leading Honda and Pai entries.

2006 winner Marc Coma moved up five places to eighth with fifth spot on the stage, but dropped to ten minutes off the lead on his Repsol KTM.

But it was a bad day for another former winner, Cyril Despres, who was only 24th fastest following a crash on his Gauloises KTM and dropped to 11th overall.

Despres said: "About 30 km into the stage I had to stand on the brakes because a photographer was on the road, and suddenly it threw me off as if I was on ice.

"I'm not hurt but it was a fair hit. It was not pleasant to crash."

Another KTM rider, American Chris Blais, lost 20 minutes while he fixed a mechanical problem with his bike, but finished the stage 11 minutes down on Rodrigues, so he will feel he could have won by a big margin.

After reaching Malaga this evening, all the remaining crews - including the Trucks, which did not run a competitive stage today to allow them to reach the Spanish port on time - will be ferried across to Morocco overnight.

Tomorrow the 'real' rally gets going with a 648km section from Nador to Er Rachidia, of which 252km are timed. You can follow all the news, as it happens, on eurosport.com, with a full round-up of the day's action on Eurosport TV.