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| World enduro champ Lala Sanz |
THE Dakar route last night (SA time) sent the
drivers and riders on a roller coaster ride, with the 751 km long Stage 10
climbing from 150 metres to 2600 metres above sea level and then hurtling down
again.
With just today left before the Dakar ends with
a largely ceremonial drive on Saturday, last night was the last real chance for
the front runners to challenge Peugeot’s dominating drivers — Sebastien “Mr
Rally” Loeb and Stephane “Mr Dakar” Peterhansel. Three Peugeots started with a
comfortable 20-minute lead ahead of South Africa’s Toyota Gazoo Racing Nani Roma
and Alex Bravo (#305) in fourth place.
Motorsport Media reports Peugeot boss Bruno
Famin was, however, anything but comfortable this lead.
“It’s not so comfortable, because the organisers
said that the next two stages are going to be tough as well, with difficulties
with navigation,” Famin pointed out.
“Okay, we have a margin against Nani, but not so
big — to lose 20 minutes is very easy — you get lost, you get stuck, you have
two punctures … and that’s it.
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| Nani Roma in action. |
“Yes, we’re three cars ahead — but the gap is not
comfortable. You never know, look at the stage where Toyota went off and had a
fuel problem, it was just a mess for all the cars, if it happened to Toyota, it
could happen to everybody. We have to be very cautious.”
This will be encouraging news for fifth-placed
Giniel de Villiers and navigator Dirk von Zitzewitz, who started well over an
hour behind the leaders last night. With most of the race taking place at normal
altitude — after that 2,6 km high mountain — their normally aspirated V8 bakkies
would have a power advantage over the lightweight turbo diesel French
buggies.
The organisers were not exaggerating when they
warned the racers the route would — again — be challenging. Last night’s long
‘trial’ section saw several riders get lost before the second weigh point, which
helped South African riders Vince Crosbie, who passed the first weigh point in
35th as well as SA Para to Dakar hero Joey Evans, in 66th overall.
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| SA rider Joey Evans. |
World female enduro champion Lala Sanz had moved
11 places up from her start and looked good to repeat her 9th place on the 2015
Dakar, the best-yet result for woman rider in the Dakar. The Catalonian rider
has been dedicating her stages to the Bolivians who lost their lives in floods
and rock slides in the past week.
At the time of going to print, Stephane
Peterhansel lost a lot of time after his Peugeot collided with biker Simon
Marcic. In the spirit of the race, the drivers stopped to assist the rider and
wait for the medical helicopter before resuming the stage. The Byzantine route
was also not kind to Toyota leader Roma, who lost 18 minutes.
But it was the 10th spot that last night saw a
ding-dong race between Abu Dhabi Sheikh Kahlid Al Qassimi’s Peugeot, separated
by only 25 seconds from Zimbabwean Conrad Rautenbach, driving with SA navigator
Rob Howie’s Toyota.
All the racers will be hoping that today will be
a lucky Friday the 13th as they take on the steep plunge of Stage 11’s 50 km
special stage down the San Juan dunes to the sea.
