Spanish motorcyclist Marc Coma rode his KTM machine to victory on the 12th and penultimate stage of the Dakar Rally on Friday to virtually wrap up the 2011 title.

Coma finished 37sec ahead of closest rival, and defending champion, Cyril Despres of France on another KTM to boost his overall lead to 16min 36sec with just Saturday's gentle 181km finale into Buenos Aires to race.

"Today was complicated due to all the rain that fell last night. As a result, it was a very technical stage, like in endurance racing, but it went fine," said Coma, after securing his fifth stage win of this year's event.

"There is still a 190km stage left to race on Saturday. Normally, there shouldn't be any complications, but we still need to race them, it's there to be done. It just shows that the route has been designed to ensure that there is suspense up to the end, so we'll just have to wait and see tomorrow."

Despres said the heavy overnight rain had made running difficult.

"I had to go on the attack, it's second nature for me anyway, so I've been going for it since the first kilometre, even if I slowed a bit at the end," said the Frenchman.

"I gave it everything I had and it was a long day. It must have rained a lot last night because the tracks were churned up with lots of mud. It was hellish. My chances are looking slimmer though.

"Mind you, it's not the end of the world, you know, you have to keep things in perspective."