2012 Dakar Rally

Arequipa – Nasca
245 km

Stage twelve took the remaining competitors northwards along the Peruvian Pacific coastline. It began with a lengthy liaison section, and finished with a tough 20 kilometre stretch of dunes.

Bikes: Coma Bridges The Gap To Regain Lead

Marc Coma started the stage exactly four minutes behind Cyril Despres on the road, courtesy of finishing two places behind the Frenchman on the previous stage. He successfully closed Despres down over the stage, thus making up just under four minutes and regaining the rally lead. His advantage with two stages remaining stands at a narrow 1m35s.

It was a Spanish 1-2-3 on the stage, with the continually impressive Joan Barreda Bort coming in second and Jordi Viladoms in third.

“It was a difficult day,” said Coma. “I set off four minutes after Cyril and I managed to catch up with him. For the entire first part of the special I mainly focused on navigation, because there was absolutely no room for mistakes. After that, I knew that there would be good opportunities to attack in the second part and that’s where I managed to regain ground on Cyril. It’s no way near over, because there’s another big stage tomorrow.”

His rival was remarkably upbeat despite losing his lead: “It was a magnificent stage, one of the finest specials that I’ve ridden on the Dakar over the last few years. In sporting terms, I expected that Marc was going to catch up with me and that it wouldn’t be a good day. But it was majestic. I don’t have any regrets, because I attacked throughout the first part. You have to go for broke on this Dakar; it’s not a race where you can play the waiting game. Against Marc Coma, I’m doing battle with an excellent rider. He’s quick and clever. So, I try and find the right pace. Apparently, there are riders in between us, so that’s good news for the start tomorrow.”

Quads: Marcos’ Turn

The dominant Patronelli brothers have been taking  it turns to win the stages in recent days, with the rally all but gone to Alejandro with a comfortable overall lead of more than an hour. Today it was Marcos’ turn, 42 seconds ahead of his brother.

Cars: Gordon Returns As Peter Gets Stuck

Robby Gordon bounced back from losing 1h50m yesterday to mechanical problems by winning the stage by over 15 minutes as he looked to regain some pride. Leonid Novitsky put in his best performance since his stage-opening flash-in-the-pan stage win by coming second, ahead of Giniel de Villiers.

But where was Peterhansel? The Frenchman got his Mini stuck in the dunes for over 20 minutes. Fortunately for him, his nearest rival (and teammate) Nani Roma also got stuck, and as a result he only lost 2m49s of his lead.

“I showed the plug that everyone’s been talking about that gives me all super power and I just proved that Minis are for girls, because we beat them by twenty minutes,” said Gordon, referring to the technical infringement he has been accused of making by the race jury.

“It was a great stage, with big dunes and the car’s fast. It’s the same system that the French officials approved one year ago and now they’ve changed their minds. I’m pissed. I’m pissed at Stephane and I’m pissed at Nani for challenging my character about being a cheater and today I kicked their asses. I’m going to prove something every day for the rest of the rally. We’re going to win every special from here home.”

Peterhansel said: “As soon as we crossed the first dunes, we went over a crest and behind it was a sink hole, immediately penalising us as we got stuck. Time passed and the minutes seemed long. We lost at least 20 minutes, which meant that we would also lose the lead in the general standings. We cleared some sand and moved the car forward centimetre by centimetre to get out of there. Afterwards, I have to admit I took risks to claw the time back. That was the 50 km where I’ve attacked the most during the whole rally. In the end we caught up with Nani several kilometres from the finish, so he must have had problems too. I’ve been saying for a while that by getting stuck in the dunes it’s possible to lose half an hour. Today we came close to a real setback.”

Roma added: “We saw that the sand was soft right away, so we deflated the tyres a bit and I saw that Stephane seemed to be stuck in a hole. A bit later, I inflated the tyres and then it was my turn to get stuck in a hole. In the end, we went through the dunes with very little air in the tyres because one of the tyres came of its rim. I opened the tracks in the dunes and it just goes to show that you also need a bit of luck. At the end, Stephane overtook me, but I’m happy to have finished. I think the rest of the cars will finish very late this evening.”

Trucks: De Rooy Marches On

Gerard De Rooy scooped his fifth stage win of the rally as he continues towards the overall win in his Iveco. Teammates Hans Stacey and Miki Biasion incredibly managed exactly the same time, 32 seconds behind their team leader.

2012 Dakar Rally

Arica – Arequipa

Bike/Quad: 534 km
Car: 478 km
Truck: 432 km

The Dakar moved into Peru for the first ever time before Stage 11. Those on bikes and quads had a longer stage and journey, to their own bivouac for the night, west of Arequipa.

Bikes: Despres Ekes Out A Lead

Cyril Despres had seen his lead over great rival and KTM teammate Marc Coma shrink the previous day, but today he fought back to gain two minutes on the Spaniard and bring his overall lead up to 2m22s. Coma was only third quickest through the stage – P2 being reserved by his fellow Catalan Gerard Farres Guell. Farres Guell will no doubt move over for Coma during the next stage, helping Coma to gain time on Despres.  Despres’ helper in the KTM ranks – fellow Frenchman Johnny Aubert – was fourth fastest – and hence is ready to capitalise.

“After a modification to the road-book, one of the tracks wasn’t very visible,” explained Despres. “I rode 100 metres to far, but I saw that Marc was turning round, even though he started two minutes before me. The day already started with a bath in a stream, pushing alongside the bike. It was a tough day, all in all! An important development might be if someone moves in between Marc and me. In any case, apart from attacking and riding, there wasn’t much to do today. Mind you, if Farres has actually finished 2nd, it’s not good for me. Tomorrow will be complicated, but anything can happen on the Dakar.”

Coma said: “We had a mixture of several types of terrain: earthy, sandy and stony. It was predictable that Cyril would gain time on me today. I’m going to try my utmost right until the end. There are three days left to give it everything. It’s difficult to define a strategy when Cyril is riding flat out in front! I’ll just have to follow him. It won’t be flat out, but the pace will again be quick, like it has been since the beginning of the race.”

Quads: Patronellis Strike Back In The Stage Win Battle

Alejandro and Marcos Patronelli had lost out to fellow Argentine Tomas Maffei on the previous stage, but today they struck back. Domiant rally leader Alejandro took the stage, half a minute ahead of Marcos. Maffei meanwhile was 19 minutes further back.

Once again the brothers rode together:

“It was a great special and we’ve managed to get to Peru,” said Alejandro. “I’m happy because Marcos and I are together. There was a lot of navigation, but we took it easy. We were very lucky and fortunately my brother was there with me. My quad got stuck in the mud and one of the wheels just wouldn’t shift, it was stuck in the tyre tracks. Marcos was a few seconds behind me and if he hadn’t been, I’d probably still be there. Our solidarity is very moving. After the link route, there was a section where we came across a 200 metre descent with a 45% gradient. The quad started skidding into the stones. It was scary, but really majestic. I think we can accomplish something good. We’ll try and continue like that. I salute Peru and long live Argentina!”

Cars: Victory Chances Over For Robby

Having lost around 15 minutes to rally leader Stephane Peterhansel on stage ten, things got much, much worse for Robby Gordon. A mechanical failure sustained during the first part of the stage ended up in him losing over an hour trying to fix it, and he would find more trouble later on that resulted in him coming home 1h50m behind – although it only dropped him from third to fourth on the overall leaderboard.

Peterhansel won the stage to put a further 3m44s between him and nearest rival and Mini teammate Nani Roma. Giniel de Villiers is now set for a podium finish after Gordon’s troubles.

“We lost a CV joint boot and when we finished the first special we tried to change it,” said Gordon. “It took us too long to change and we missed the transfer section. At the end it was very bad and the silt is all inside the clutch, so we’ve lost the clutch and a wheel fell off… We’ve just had a bad day – we had a horrible day.

“The only way we’ll win is if the other guys have problems, but I’m pretty sure De Villiers got past us too. But, you know, that’s the Dakar. You fight, fight, fight and hopefully it doesn’t get you, but today it just got us, for no reason. A 1 dollar part, a hose clamp broke. That put is in a position to miss everything else, so it was a bad day for us, but we’ll just keep fighting until the end. We won’t give up. You never know what will happen, so we’ll ride to Lima.”

Peterhansel said: “We didn’t drive at a really fast pace, but we didn’t have any technical or navigation problems, so it was a good special, but not very pleasant to drive because of the fesh-fesh. There wasn’t much visibility, even opening the road, because the wind blew the dust up making it difficult to see. I overtook Nani several kilometres from the finishing line: he got stuck on a little dune trying to avoid a biker, but he didn’t even need to get out of the car to get going again.

“As for Gordon, whatever happens now, he will just be carrying on to Lima for the enjoyment. There’s around twenty minutes between Nani and me now, with two big stages of dunes to come. There’ll be a lot of dune cresting and we know that if we get stuck in a hollow between them we could lose a lot of time. We’ll have to play it safe. It’s always been like that. Each time I’ve won the car race, I always had a team-mate hot on my heels: Masuoka, Alphand… There’s always been this sort of pressure to handle.”

Roma, 22m49s behind overall, added: “I had two bikers ahead of me and a small dune and one of them fell in front of me, so I was stuck for two minutes, but it’s not too bad. I didn’t lose too much time, perhaps two minutes. Everything is ok, we’re happy to be here now and with Stephane, we drove a very good race.

“I don’t know if I have a chance because Stephane is quite far ahead. But I’m happy for all the team. There are twenty minutes between us and you can lose that much when you get really stuck in the sand. It can happen to anybody, but when I say that I’m not thinking about Stephane. With the experience that he has, he’s someone who doesn’t make many mistakes. In fact, I’m not counting on what the others do. I prefer to try and do my best by myself to finish in a good position in Lima.”

Trucks: A Second Stage Win On The Bounce For Kamaz

Kamaz finally sealed their first stage win on an Iveco-dominated rally on stage ten – and they repeated it again today. This time in the hands of Russia’s Andrey Karginov. Gerard De Rooy was only fourth fastest, but continues to lead comfortably.

2012 Dakar Rally

Iquique – Arica
377 km

Stage Ten initially saw the competitors head back down south from the Iquique bivouac, before looping around and heading north again towards Arica, just before the Peruvian border.

Bikes – Barreda Beats The KTM Duo

Joan Barreda Bort produced his most impressive performance yet on the 2012 Dakar Rally by bagging his first ever fastest time. After being forced out on his debut in 2011 by injury on just the second stage, this was only the Spanish Husqvarna rider’s 12^th ever stage on the Dakar. He finished up a minute and a half clear of compatriot Marc Coma. Cyril Despres finished another two minutes behind, but he clung onto his overall lead by just 21 seconds.

“After the rear wheel problems I had on the third day, I’ve been taking it day by day,” said Barreda after the stage. “On the last stages it has been better and yesterday, for example, I saw that I could go on the attack, so I went for it.

“On today’s stage, I had a problem with my foot. On a very quick bend, where I was at 120 kmph, I hit a stone with my foot and I thought that the impact had torn my leg off. When I arrived at the refuelling zone, I took some painkillers and it was ok until the end of the stage. I even sped up. We’ll see what’s happened to me. I thought I might have fractured my shin, but I don’t think I have. I don’t know how serious the injury is, but I think I should be ok and be able to finish in Lima.”

Coma said: “It’s the tone that’s been set for the rally and I think we’ll keep on battling until the end. We keep trying to make the difference all the time and the entry into Peru will be decisive. The race will hinge on the smallest of margins. When the performance level is equivalent with the same team and the same bike, it’s very difficult, both for him and for me. But when it comes to the crunch, it will be entirely to do with one rider or the other.”

Despres explained how a navigation error lost him time: “It was all going well for me until the 225-km point and I’d managed to keep up a good pace. But I made a small navigation mistake and that’s when Marc overtook me. He was with Joan Barreda, who I’d like to congratulate on riding a superb stage. At this level, every second counts! It’s a scenario that I thought might happen, so I’m not surprised. I’m just happy to have got through another day. In any case, staying out in front for the whole 377 km whilst riding flat out isn’t easy. If I finish in his dust or him in mine, it doesn’t change that much.”

Quads – Maffei Prevents A Patronelli Stage Win

Alejandro Patronelli continues to cruise towards the defence of his title, but he was only third quickest on the stage. He came in exactly 30 seconds behind his brother Marcos. Beating them both however was fellow Argentine Tomas Maffei, 13 minutes up the road.

“It was a very varied, quick stage and I was quite nervous about it,” said Maffei. “After the long stage at Antofagasta this one was shorter and it was better. The navigation was complicated. I lost a way point and had to look for it. But, all in all, it was a superb stage, with a magnificent passage through the mountains. There was a lot of earth and the wind wasn’t blowing it away, meaning it stayed on the tracks, especially in the last 20 to 30 kilometres of the rally. Now I have to look after the quad and avoid losing contact with the leaders in the general standings. We’re going to be entering Peru and there will be the marathon stage. It’s sure that being on my own makes it more difficult, but either of them could have a problem.”

Cars – Roma Wins The Stage As Robby Hits Trouble

The leading duo of Stephane Peterhansel and Robby Gordon took turns to head the stage during the day, but towards the end of the stage the American Hummer driver damaged the front left of his car. As a result he lost the best part of a quarter of an hour. This dropped him from second to third overall, behind stage winner Nani Roma. The Spaniard edged his Mini teammate Peterhansel by 21 seconds, to leave him 19 minutes behind overall. Meanwhile, Krzysztof Holowczyc came in over five and a half hours late due to a power steering failure on his X-Raid machine.

To make matters worse for Gordon, he is now racing under appeal after being disqualified for a technical infringement.

“I hit a rock with both right-side tyres and as you can see this wheel is way out, so we’ve got some broken parts,” explained Gordon. “Do I think I can win again? Of course. I was passing him [Peterhansel], he didn’t move over and I clobbered a rock and got two flat tyres at the same time. So, we’ve got our work cut out for us. We’ve got a damaged race car that we’re going to have work on and there’s a lot of damage from what I can see. Now we’ll push, push, push even harder.”

Peterhansel said: “Today it was a big fight with Gordon. At the beginning he was a little bit slower than us. We overtook him when he made a navigation mistake, but at the end he overtook me again. He was really fast on a very short corner to the left, very tight, and he went straight on and jumped off a small cliff. I was sure that he rolled, but when I saw again through the dust he was on his wheels. I think something happened with his car, I don’t know exactly why or what – maybe the tyre? I don’t know.”

Roma added: “The stage was good. Winning again is good motivation. For me, it’s just another win, but it’s really motivating for the guys who are working on the car. It’s good for Mini and it’s good for X-Raid. In any case, I’m very happy, but my aim is not to win stages. I’m looking at the bigger picture and I want to finish in Lima in the best position possible. For the moment, there are no instructions. It’s important to do things correctly like we have done up to today. Stephane is 18 minutes ahead of me, which is a bit far, but you have to believe and drive like we have been doing since the start.”

Trucks: First Stage Win For Ardavichus

Kazakhstan’s Artur Ardavichus scored his first ever Dakar stage win – but it was also the first win of the 2012 event for the previously-dominant Kamaz. He benefited from a navigation error by comfortable rally leader Gerard de Rooy, who led Iveco teammate Hans Stacey with him.

“Really today was such a difficult day,” said Ardavichus. “There was good navigation and very nice dunes, really big and difficult dunes – we like this. For us this was a normal stage. Everything was good today: good speed, good terrain. Everything was ok, the truck is good and this is much better. De Rooy is very fast. I don’t know why today he went a bit slower. Maybe there is a problem with his truck, but normally De Rooy is much too fast, faster than me. One kilometre before the finish, De Rooy overtook me. It was a good day.”

2012 Dakar Rally

Antofagasta – Iquique
556 km

Today’s stage saw the competitors head further north through Chile from Antofagasta to Iquique. The second half of the stage was separated by a neutralised section on tarmac, prior to taking on the wildly steep descent back down to the Pacific shoreline and the finish at Iquique, as previously used two years ago.

Bikes: Despres Back Infront After Getting Stuck In The Mud

After losing his lead yesterday after getting stuck in exceedingly thick mud that was not shown in the roadbook, Cyril Despres made up the deficit on KTM teammate Marc Coma to regain the overall lead with a stage win. He was only second in the stage rankings at the end of the day though, after KTM had opted to change their engines and incur a 15 minute penalty for each of their factory drivers. The overall gap between Despres and Coma now stands at 2m28s.

“It’s feeling good,” said Despres. “After a difficult day yesterday when you start to doubt, I had to get back to winning ways. It wasn’t easy to psyche myself up for it, but I’m very happy with my day’s work. We came into this looking at a battle for seconds or minutes. It’s very competitive. Like any top level sportsman, if you don’t like confrontation or squeezing the last ounces of strength out of yourself, then you’re not ready for a fight. But, as for me, I’m up for it.”

Coma commented: “We knew that this would be a difficult race. It was long and there was plenty of navigation to deal with. We’re coming to the crunch part of the rally. Cyril is a major rival and we do battle over every single kilometre. But I think it’s interesting, it’s sport. Yesterday, the KTM technicians decided it was time to change our engines because we’d reached the half-way point. It’s a very good idea.”

Taking the engine-change penalties into account, third-placed overall Helder Rodrigues ended up top of the timesheets for the day. Despite gaining 15 minutes on Despres and Coma overall, the Yamaha rider is still the best part of 45 minutes behind, and has the issue of an old engine.

Quads: Patronellis Again

The stage was dominated again by the Patronelli brothers. They rode together through the stage, with rally leader Alejandro taking the win ahead of Marcos, and 44 minutes clear of Tomas Maffei.

“We rode almost all the stage together,” said Marcos. “In the end, over the last 60 kilometres, we were neck and neck. It was a superb stage, quick and a bit tricky on some parts with dunes at the end; I was a bit worried at the beginning of the stage because there were a lot of stones. There was still a long way to go and I was scared of getting a puncture. I’m happy with my machine because the Yamaha is working well. I’m more than an hour behind, so winning the category is out of my reach now, but finishing each day and getting through the stages until Lima is my goal.”

Cars: Gordon Wins, Al-Attiyah Out

It was certainly a mixed day in the Robby Gordon camp. While the American himself triumphed on the stage to take a minute and a half out of rally leader Stephane Peterhansel’s advantage, Nasser Al-Attiyah’s Dakar defence came to an end in the other Hummer. After breaking numerous alternator belts, the Qatari called it a day. He’s working on returning with his new WRC partner Citroen for next year.

“It was a very good special for us again,” said Gordon upon finishing the stage. “On the transfer stage, I think we had [Peterhansel] beat by about a minute and a half. But we need more than a minute and a half, so I pushed very hard on the last section, as hard as I could go the whole time and it will be interesting to see how much time we put on him because we pushed, like qualifying hard, not really knowing where you’re going. We had a couple of big scary moments. For us, we’ve got to make time. We’re in a different position to him. He has to conserve his time and I’ve got to make it. We’ve got four days left, four real days of racing left and the Hummer’s strong. 19 seconds? He made a lot of time up on me, then. I can’t believe he could catch us there, because we were going crazy. So he’s a madman; if he beats us, he’s a madman. Madder than me!”

Trucks: Loprais Crashes Out Of Second

Gerard De Rooy’s chances of victory improved further when nearest rival Ales Loprais had an accident in his Tatra on the neutralised section, putting him out of the rally. After losing hours in the dunes on Saturday, Miki Biasion was victorious on the stage. De Rooy now leads Hans Stacey by 47 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBuOsa1MtV4

2012 Dakar Rally Stage Nine Results:

Bikes

* includes 15 minute penalty for engine change

Quads

Cars

Trucks

Overall standings after stage nine

Bikes

Quads

Cars

Trucks

2012 Dakar Rally

Copiapo – Antofagasta
477km

After the rest day comes the longest stage of the 2012 Dakar Rally and the start of the northward swing along the Pacific seaboard towards the finish line in Lima. The new route aside the route between Copiapo and Antofagasta through the Atacama Desert have the mainstay of the Dakar since the move to South America. One of the toughest days of the 2012 rac saw the lead change in one class, while the order shuffled in all the others as we moved a day closer to knowing the winners.

Bikes: Coma Takes Advantage
The two man battle at the front of the bike race swung dramatically in the opening kilometres of the stage. First Coma – opening the road after winning Saturday’s seventh stage – lost time after a minor navigation error. However, the mistake meant he avoided a muddy river in which several other of the leading riders got caught in, including chief rival and overall leader Cyril Despres.

“There was a torrent of mud between the inspection of the reconnaissance car two days ago and today,” said the Frenchman. “Therefore, it did not appear in the road book and I was the first to fall into the trap. There was no way I could have avoided it.”

Despres’ issues where quickly apparent to Coma who pused as hard as he dare for much of the stage in order to capitalise on the problems for his fellow KTM rider. The combination of the time lost in the mud and the time Coma clawed back throughout the stage totalled over 17 minutes at the end of the stage. After the completion of the stage rally organisers too the decision to discount the time Despres and others – including Helder Rodrigues, and Pal Anders Ullevalseter – lost in the mud, cutting Despres’ time lost to just 9:14. However it was still enough for Coma to move into the overall lead.

“A very long special,” Coma said. “I was lucky not to lose too much time in the mud and then I saw I could open a gap, so I attacked really hard. But towards the end I noticed I had engine problems towards the end, so I took slowed down a bit to ensure I would make it to the finish. This is my 20th special victory: a nice figure. Yet it is not winning specials that counts, but winning the race. And I know there is still a long week of racing ahead.”

Quads: Alejandro’s To Lose
After leaping into a lead of over an hour thank to mistakes by his brother Marcos and Tomas Maffei, Alejandro Patronelli now looks certain to defend his class title, barring serious mishap in the remaining stages.

On the potentially difficult stage the elder of the Argentine brothers held strong, only surrendering the lead to Marcos in the closing kilometres to preserve his massive overall advantage as Tomas Maffei is over an hour behind after slipping another nine minutes into arrears on stage eight.

“A long, tough and fast stage,” Alejandro analysed. “The final part was also complicated. I am very happy and thank God I made it to the finish. I started among the motorcycles. I feared it might be complicated, but things turned out OK. I had the entire course to myself and was able to set a good pace. Most of the stage was full of rocks and my hands hurt a bit. But I am really happy. The classification is not my main concern.”

Cars: The Tale Of Two Hummers
For the first time, Robby Gordon’s team of Dakar Hummers have two truly competitive drivers, but thus far the Dakar seems intent on treating them in two different ways.

Defending champion and Hummer new recruit Nasser Al-Attiyah endured yet more niggling technical problems – the alternator, engine belt and a loose spare wheel – delaying the Qatari. When now slowed by his problems he was again the fastest man on stage, overtaking all the MINIs during the passage of the stage as he only lost eight minutes to stage winner Nani Roma after having been as far as nineteen minutes adrift after the opening exchanges.

Robby Gordon in the other Hummer, meanwhile, continues to win back time, slicing into Stephane Peterhansel’s overall lead. The American led the stage during the first half, but the MINIs of Peterhansel, Roma and Krzysztof Holowczyc were ahead by the half way point, before Gordon began to gain once more.

Roma won the stage – his second of 2012 – by just five seconds from Gordon who was over five minutes ahead of Peterhansel who was hampered by a puncture only 30km from the end of the timed section.

Peterhansel’s overall lead is now just seven minutes over Gordon in second and Krzysztof Holowczyc in third – the pair split by only twelve seconds. Roma lies fourth overall with Giniel de Villiers fifth, 37 minutes down on Peterhansel.

Trucks: Stage Win For Loprais
After consecutive second places on the two previous stages Czech driver Ales Loprais claimed his first 2012 stage win ahead of overall lead Gerard de Rooy.

De Rooy’s Iveco teammate Miki Biasion was third fastest on the day, though his problems before the rest day have rule the Italian out of challenging for the overall podium – he is more than six hours away from the overall lead – he still has the capability to add to the single stage win already to his name this year.

Loprais’ stage win has moved him to just 15 minutes down on the overall lead, with Hans Stacey also constant in third, though the Dutchman 15 minutes to De Rooy.

2012 Dakar Stage Eight Results

Bikes:

Quads

Cars

Trucks

Overall standings after stage eight

Bikes

Quads

Cars

Trucks

2012 Dakar Rally

Copiapo – Copiapo

419 km

After an impromptu day off for the competitors yesterday when the stage was cancelled due to the Chilean authorities closing the border in bad weather conditions, they were back in action today – if just for one day ahead of Sunday’s rest. It was certainly a tough challenge though, with a large number of dunes to be crossed.  A 154 km liaison section took them south of Copiapo, before the first half of the special took them north again, but this time towards the Pacific coast. After a short neutralised section on tarmac they began climbing up into the dunes to the north of Copiapo, looping back down again to the bivouac.

Bikes: Coma Takes A Bite From Despres’ Lead

Marc Coma just pipped Cyril Despres to the finishing line of the stage by three seconds, having set off two minutes behind. The Spaniard therefore cut 2m03s out of his KTM teammate’s overall lead, reducing to 7m48s.

The leading duo again finished first and second on the stage, but were helped by others getting into trouble. On the first stage of this year’s race in his homeland, Chile’s Francisco Lopez separated the KTM pair at the first checkpoint, but then fell at the 83 km mark. He was straight back up and on his way again, but had lost more than eight minutes by CP2 before coming home a whole half an hour behind Coma – enough for him to drop from fourth to ninth overall (albeit just a second behind eighth placed Stefan Svitko). He is doubtful though that he’ll be able to continue at all.

“I fell in the first part of the special,” said Lopez. “Not very hard, but enough to re-awaken the pain in my right knee. In the second part of the special I suffered so much on the dunes that I was hardly able to ride. I do not know, but I fail to see how I could continue tomorrow. Fortunately, tomorrow is the rest day, so I will see the bivouac doctors and call mine, but I think my Dakar has come to an end. I am in a world of pain right now.”

After Lopez’s demise it was Juan Barreda Bort who took the challenge to the KTM men, and the Husqvarna rider was just 20 seconds adrift of his fellow Spaniard Coma at WP6. He then took a wrong turn before eventually coming home more than 13 minutes down. Instead it would be his teammate Paulo Goncalves nearest to Coma and Despres, 46s behind the Frenchman. He moves up to fourth overall following Lopez’s losses, behind fellow Portuguese rider Helder Rodrigues (who was fourth on today’s stage).

Quads: Advantage Alejandro

Up against the might of the Patronelli brothers, it had been Tomas Maffei leading the way into Chile. However, he would lose nearly an hour on the stage – though he would only fall to second place overall. That’s because Marcos Patronelli lost even more time – 1h20m to be more precise.

“This stage was very long,” said Marcos. “I made a mistake at km 230. I took a wrong turn and did not realise I had until much later. I lost 30 kilometres due to this mistake – quite a lot of time. Therefore, I rode at a reasonable pace for the rest of the stage. What else could I do?”

All that leaves Alejandro Patronelli in pole position to repeat his rally win from 2011 – with 58 minutes in hand over nearest challenger Maffei. He’s being naturally cautious though.

“The stage was very interesting. I finished among the 30 first riders of the motorcycle classification. That is good. But the general classification is not the most important thing. There is still a long way to go. Of course, this classification means a lot and means nothing at the same time. Look at what happened to Marcos. He lost over an hour. He is so stubborn… I had told him to wait for me.”

Cars: Al-Attiyah Back As The Hummers Conquer The Dunes

After losing 45 minutes over the course of the previous two stages, everything came together for defending champion Nasser Al-Attiyah today. He was actually two minutes down at the first checkpoint, but fought back through the remainder of the stage and was on fire during the dunes, passing a number of the cars ahead of him. The Qatari finished up more than seven minutes clear of anyone else. He’s still only sixth overall, more than 40 minutes adrift – but he hasn’t given up hope of retaining his title just yet.

“The car worked perfectly well today and we attacked from the beginning to the end of the special,” said Al-Attiyah. “We took a lot of risks to set the best time. Our objective is to claw back seven or eight minutes every day. And today we did it perfectly. We will do our best to repeat this performance in all stages from Monday onwards, or even try to do better. At any rate, we have no other choice if we still want to win the Dakar!”

By the end of the stage his nearest rival was actually his team boss Robby Gordon in the other Hummer. An early flat tyre left him five minutes down at the first checkpoint, but finished the stage second fastest. This lifted him back into the podium places overall – but he thinks it’s Al-Attiyah who can still stop the Minis from winning the rally.

“It really was a perfect day for the Hummers,” he proclaimed. “I had a flat 25 km into the first special and Peterhansel overtook me, but we were later able to move back ahead of him. We will see exactly how much time we gained on him, but it is obvious that our car is extremely fast on this type of terrain. It is easy to see that it was designed for this sort of stages. We have also changed a lot of things, including the transmission, and it is now a fearsome machine. In fact, I am sure Nasser is going to win this thing… OK, the others are still ahead, but I think we are in a very good position for the rest of the rally.”

Stephane Peterhansel was just 23s adrift of Gordon on the stage, and well ahead of his nearest challengers (and teammates) Krzysztof Holowczyc and Nani Roma. The Frenchman’s overall lead over Holowczyc is now at 11m22s.

Trucks – All Over For Biasion

The story of the day in the trucks category was Miki Biasion, who stopped between WP8 and 9. The former two-time World Rally Champion had been lying second in his Iveco as he enjoyed a day-off on his 54^th birthday yesterday.

Team leader Gerard De Rooy won the stage to strengthen his lead, while Ales Loprais finished second to move up into the same placing overall in his Tatra.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUsy0Z91O8s

2012 Dakar Rally Stage Seven Results:

Bikes

Quads

Cars

Trucks

Overall standings after stage seven

Bikes

Quads

Cars

Trucks

2012 Dakar Rally

Chilecito – Fiambala
Cars, Trucks 177km; Bikes, Quads 265km

Stage five took the rally into the first real dunes of the 2012 route with the four classes taking wildly different roots to Fiambala – the beginning of their Andes crossing on the way to Chile. Though – after bad weather had forced the stage to be cut in length – short on kilometres compared to some of the other tests of the first week the stage still included some tests, including sand dunes, which would make their mark on the overall standings. The stages around Fiambala have become infamous in the history of the Dakar in South America, twice Carlos Sainz lost a near certain victory there. Whether Fiambala will have a similar effect in 2012 still remains to be seen, with a week of racing remaining.

Bikes: Despres Versus Coma (Again)
If the bike class was a battle between Frenchman Cyril Despres and Spaniard Marc Coma before the bikers hit the stage from Chilecito then by the time night fell on Fiambala such a conclusion is almost unavoidable.

Once again the two works supported KTM riders dominated the stage, Despres taking his second stage win of 2012 and the 28th of his Dakar career. Coma was again his constant shadow – only metaphorically as Coma was first on the road – ending the stage 1:41 down on the Frenchman, who lead expanded back out 9:51.

“After the first day,” said Despres, “you could have said that lots of other riders were going to be involved in the fight, but in the end, there aren’t too many! The gaps aren’t very big at the moment and we’re playing with gaps of two minutes. Today was easier for me, because I set off behind him. Perhaps tomorrow, it will be the opposite. I’ve got a lead over him and it’s a fairly comfortable cushion. Mind you, it can disappear quickly, so I need to keep the same state of mind and the same amount of concentration.”

The man in third overall, Helder Rodrigues struggled with more of what he described as “little problems” with his Yamaha and lost over twenty minutes to the lead duo as he claimed only the fourteenth fastest time of the day. Rodrigues held on to third overall as both men immediately behind him – Francisco Lopez and Paulo Goncalves lost nineteen minutes on the stage.

The third best time on stage went to Husqvarna rider Joan Barreda Bort. After running in the top five overall after the earliest stages problems have dropped the Spaniard over three hours off the times of Despres and Coma.

Slovakian Stefan Svitko and Jordi Viladoms completed the top five, taking their first such positions of 2012.

Quads: It’s Tight At The Top
It’s a sad fact of the modern Dakar that the Quad class is almost forgotten beneath the headlines of the cars and bikes. In past years this has only – though that might not be the right word – missed dominating victories by  Josef Machacek and the Patronelli brothers.

So far this year, however, skimming over the Quad race is missing perhaps the best battle so far of the 2012 Dakar.

Tomas Maffei, Alejandro Patronelli and his brother Marcos are covered in the overall standings by just two minutes, with Maffei’s lead just 35 seconds. The margins were squeezed ever tighter by the fifth stage.

Marcos (third overall) won by 1:51 from his brother (second overall) with Maffei four minutes behind the stage winning time.

Lucas Bonetto – the youngest man to start the 2012 Dakar Rally is holing firm in fourth overall, though he lost more time to the three ahead on the way to Fiambala. Ignacio Casale is the only non-Argentine in the top five, but as the race transitions into his native Chile he is two hours, 43 minutes behind Maffei in the overall standings.

Cars: More Bad Luck For Al-Attiyah
The stage for the cars began with one of the more surely one of the more unusual retirements of the 2012 event. Despite their top five stage time on stage four it appears that Orlando Terranova and his co-driver Andy Grider had an argument that led to the Argentine handing over his tracking equipment to organisers before the stage and pulling out of the event.

On stage the racing was, unfortunately, a very recognisable story. The Hummers of Nasser Al-Attiyah and Robby Gordon were again fastest through much of the stage, the Qatari leading as far as 155km before another swing of bad luck stopped the reigning champion.

Al-Attiyah explained what happened; “The spare wheel was loose and it hit the engine water pipe, breaking it and after the temperature was very high, so we stopped to repair again and lost a lot of time. But what can I do? I was really having a good run, I was doing my maximum but I don’t know what’s wrong, you know. My plan today was to take at least ten minutes from everybody and that’s what was happening because I was really fast until CP2, I think. But after, we stopped there because we needed water and to fix and prepare the car. So, yes, I’m disappointed again.”

The problem dropped another stage win into the hands to the Team X-Raid MINIs, Krzysztof Holowczyc taking the stage win by a minute ahead of Robby Gordon, the sole non-MINI in the day’s top five ahead of Peterhansel, Roma and Novitskiy. Ricardo Leal dos Santos was sixth fastest, putting all five MINI All4 Racing machines in the top six places.

Gordon is now fourth overall behind the three leading MINIs – Peterhansel, Holowczyc and Roma – and ahead of Giniel de Villiers.

The Toyota driver was the highest profile runner to lose his times stuck in the dunes, slipping almost twenty minutes off the stage lead.

“We were going quite nicely, then in the second passage of dunes we came over a crest and there was a big hole on the other side,” said the South African. “I nearly made it through the hole but we managed to get stuck quite badly and the sand was very, very soft. We had to jack the car up about five or six times just to try and get out and obviously we lost some time there, but that’s Fiambala!”

Trucks: Another Win For Iveco
Gerard de Rooy’s lead at the end of the stage was just 14 seconds over Ales Loprais in his Tatra as the Dutchman notched up his third stage win and the fourth for Iveco after Marcel van Vliet’s success for MAN on the opening stage.

The first stage winner of the truck race appears to have ended his race in the dunes outside Fiambala, reportedly in the same location where de Villiers had lost twenty minutes. Initially the Dutchman was said to have lost two hours, but has yet – long after that two hours has elapsed – to be credited with completing the stage.

With such a delay Van Vliet may well follow the Kamaz crew no.500 led by Eduard Nikolaev out of the rally. The Russian crew was expelled from the rally for what officials described as unsportsmanlike conduct during stage four.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-TGcS_7wPM

2012 Dakar Rally Stage Five Results:

Bikes

Quads

Cars

Trucks

Overall standings after stage five

Bikes

Quads

Cars

Trucks

2012 Dakar Rally

San Juan – Chilelcito
326km

The longest stage of the Dakar Rally so far this year was always likely to be the venue for some shuffling of the order. If the sheer distance involved was not enough of an issue another stage set in the mountains and canyons of the Andes presented yet more difficulties for the competitors. As the general classification in all four class begins to settle down after the swings of the early stages it is too early to tell if time lost on the way to Chilecito will be crucial in Lima, but it’s entirely possible.

Bikes: Coma Claws Back
After losing his lead to a navigational error on stage three Marc Coma won back two minutes over rally leader Cyril Despres as the two works KTM riders – though separated on the road were together on the times through the day’s checkpoints.

Able to turn his relatively lowly starting position (sixth) to his advantage Coma followed the riders ahead, easing navigational concerns while constantly making up time on all those ahead.

Such was Coma’s pace that he finished the stage riding with Dutchman Frans Verhoeven who started the stage second. The Sherco rider, unlike Coma had had to contend with problems on the stage as he explained afterwards;

“I set off at a very fast pace this morning and was riding in the wake of Cyril, whom I saw in front of me. Everything went OK until 4 km before the refuelling point, when the motorcycle had an electrical problem and refused to start. I noticed part of the rear of the motorcycle had been ripped off, destroying the fuse. I replaced it with some wire and continued to the refuelling point, where I used the allowed 15 minutes to fill my tank and make some repairs.”

Verhoeven was not alone in losing time. David Casteu, third on the previous stage lost fifteen minutes to Coma, dropping out of the top five overall. Francisco Lopez – who started the rally so well with victory on the opening stage continued to slip away from the two horse race apparent at the head of the class. ‘Chaleco’ was good enough only for ninth on stage today after making the same navigation mistake as Casteu and is now fourth overall, very nearly half an hour off the pace and three minutes behind Helder Rodrigues who has taken third overall.

Quads: Argentinean Civil War For Victory?
If the Bike class can already be considered an intra-marque battle between the leading KTMs then the Quad class is a civil war between a trio of Yamaha straddling Argentines.

Tomas Maffei and the Patronelli brothers – Alejandro and Marcos – now have a one hour advantage in the overall standings over their countryman Lucas Bonetti after the 20-year-old stopped on stage with a mechanical problem before continuing and finishing today’s stage 31 minutes slower than Maffei, who took his third career Dakar stage win following his two successes from 2011.

In contrast to the gap to fourth the leading three are covered by just 6:10, Marcos losing the lead partly down to a small navigational mistake after 99km of the stage. An early engine problem for Pablo Sebastian Copetti, who started the stage first after winning stage three, left the younger Patronelli to open the road of the quad class.

There were further problems for Sergio la Fuente, who won the opening two stages, suffered problems on stage – including a puncture – and lost a total of two hours, 45 minutes on stage.

Cars: Al-Attiyah quick, Peterhansel Consistent
That Stephane Peterhansel won the stage and retook the overall lead only a day after falling from first to fifth is only the start of the story of the stage for the cars.

Other than the final 40km this was another stage all about Nasser Al-Attiyah displaying the brutal potential of the Hummer H3 when the terrain suits the Robby Gordon Motorsport run machine. The Qatari led the stage times at all of the way points, eventually enjoying a lead of over three minutes over Peterhansel after 262km.

Al-Attiyah’s charge, however, came to an end in mud at 288km.

“Towards the end of the special,” he explained, “we got stuck in the mud and it took us a long time to get out of it… But the race is not over yet and we will try to do our best over the next ten days. I am starting to get the feel of my car. This morning we were moving at a great pace, setting the best times without pushing too hard. We actually overtook two of the Minis. So we will see what we can do.”

It was teammate Robby Gordon, running some distance behind after losing time to punctures in the early kilometres to pull him free, but not before 27 minutes had ebbed away in favour of Peterhansel.

Behind the Frenchman Orlando Terranova made his first appearance in a stage top five, this year with co-driver Andy Grider, a man who in the past has shared a Hummer with Robby Gordon, ahead of Giniel de Villiers. De Villiers, as yet, has been the quiet man of the race, never fastest but also never losing time and his steady pace means he is now second overall.

Nani Roma and Krzysztof Holowczyc are third and fourth, with Gordon fifth after his delays on the stage. Al-Attiyah, sixth overall at the start of the day has slipped a place further back – now behind MINI driver Leonid Novitskiy and 30 minutes down on Peterhansel.

Trucks: Iveco Show The Way
Iveco’s three lead crews, with drivers Gerard de Rooy, Hans Stacey and Miki Biasion not only finished 1-2-3 on stage four, but hold the same places in the overall standings.

The leader at the start of the day – Artur Ardavichus – has slipped to fifth overall after losing 13 minutes today. While the Kazakh driver remains the lead Kamaz in the overall standings Eduard Nikolaev – the de jure team leader among the Russian manufacturer’s entries carrying the no.500 plate was the best on stage, fifth overall. In doing so he split the MAN teammates Marcel Van Vliet and Franz Echter.

Overall the lead three are split by just three minutes, with Tatra driver Ales Loprais ten minutes further in arrears.

De Rooy dominated the stage, leading at all way points as his teammates and Van Vliet fought for the minor positions on the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CkbtfEK1ds

2012 Dakar Rally Stage Four Results

Bikes

Quads

Cars

Trucks

Overall standings after stage four

Bikes

Quads

Cars

Trucks

2012 Dakar Rally

San Rafael – San Juan
Cars, Truck 208km; Bikes, Quads 270km

Stage three of this year’s rally and the competitors get their first driving in the Andes mountain range that will flank the rally’s route through the remainder of the 2012 edition on the way to Lima, Peru. The highest peaks on the bike stage –  well over 3,200ft – and steep climbs will test the mechanical strength of the engines in some of the harshest possible conditions. The shorter car stage presents many of the same challenges on rough, rocky terrain. Another factor, in hindsight on the stage, will be navigation with at least two of the top competitors losing time to following the wrong route on the way to San Juan, nestled in the mountains.

Bikes: Despres Takes Advantage Of Wayward Coma
Cyril Despres won both the stage and moved into the overall lead as he benefitted from problems for those who begun the day ahead of him in the overall stages.

Of those to lose time the highest profile – obviously – was Spaniard Marc Coma who started the day leading the class. Coma and Despres duelled through, swapping the lead through the first three checkpoints until just two seconds separated the pair after 162km in Coma’s favour.

However, just after the checkpoint a navigational error lost Coma 13 minutes to Despres, setting only the seventh best time on the day, allowing Despres to build up a ten minute lead in the overall standings – the biggest lead of all four classes at this stage.

“After 170 km,” Coma explained, “there was a different track for the bikes and the cars. I checked the road-book and thought I was on the right track, but then I saw that wasn’t the case, because the next note was after 8 km and it wasn’t correct, so I turned round! 16 km is a lot! So, after that, I went on the attack to tray and gain back some time, but today was a difficult day, even if the scenery was spectacular… Well, in the end, I’ve lost 13 minutes. It’s a lot, but when you make a mistake, you shouldn’t be surprised that the gaps open up. That’s racing for you. Yesterday was my day, but today definitely wasn’t!”

Chilean Francisco ‘Chaleco’ Lopez, who started the stage second overall lost 18 minutes to Despres on stage and dropped to fourth behind David Casteu who set the day’s sixth fastest time. Joan Barreda Bort – another man who began the day in the top five overall – fell even further back, losing 41 minutes to the new rally leader.

The Spaniard’s place as top Husqvarna rider is taken by Paulo Goncalves, who lies sixth overall after setting the third best stage time, losing out by just two seconds to Sherco rider Frans Verhoeven.

The problems in the bike class were completed by two other riders who showed pace in the opening stages. Jakub Pryzgonski was forced to retire with a blown engine on his KTM. Quinn Cody broke a collar bone in a fall and so followed the Pole out of the Rally.

Quads: Patronelli (Younger) Leads For The First Time Since 2010 Victory
Pablo Sebastian Copetti won the stage by over fine minutes ahead of Marcos Patronelli, deny the 2010 champion his first stage for two Dakars. However, Copetti has already collected a four hour penalty after stage two, meaning he is well out contention for the class lead lying seven hours off the pace.

For the younger of the Patronelli brothers second on the stage was good enough to lift him into the class lead, with erstwhile leader Sergio La Fuente losing time, only finishing sixth fastest on the stage.

Marcos leads an Argentine 1-2-3-4 in the overall standings, with brother Alejandro, Tomas Maffei and Lucas Bonetto in sequence behind, though a gulf of over 30 minutes splits Bonetto from the podium spots. All are ahead of Luis Henderson who moves into fifth after setting the sixth fastest time on the stage, 21 minutes down on Copetti and five behind Ignacio Casale who was fifth fastest.

Cars: Roma Wins, Holowczyc Survives Mishap To Take Overall Lead
The stage for the cars was again a fight between the Team X-Raid MINIs and the Robby Gordon Motorsport Hummers.

Rally leader Stephane Peterhansel was on course to extend his lead with a first stage win of the 2012 Dakar. The Frenchman, already a multiple champion in both the car and bike classes led through the first two the day’s checkpoints – at 40 and 117km.

However, it washis X-Raid teammate Nani Roma – another man who has swapped two wheels for four during his years of Dakar competition – who was left to pick up the stage win after Peterhansel suffered two separate punctures. Peterhansel was delayed by just six minutes, but in the early stages of the Dakar it was enough to drop him to fifth overall as Roma moved up to fourth.

The overall rally lead passes to Krzysztof Holowczyc who finished the stage in a time just a minute longer than Roma’s benchmark, and despite losing time when a branch broke his MINI’s windscreen as he drove through some water on stage.

“When we drove through the water there was really bad visibility and we took a branch which was really heavy properly full on in the front of the car,” he said. “It broke the windscreen. One time we lost about 30 seconds maybe more because we followed the motorcycles and they went the longer way. We had to reverse after 500 metres but we had to go very slow to avoid hitting any of the motorcycles because they were going the opposite way. It was a good stage, for sure, a good stage without technical problems.”

Holowczyc was just 1:09 slower than Roma through the 208km stage and 20 seconds faster than Nasser Al-Attiyah.

The pair of Hummers had a quieter day after their – especially the Qatari’s – rampage to the front on stage two. Both he and Robby Gordon kept pace with the MINIs and Giniel de Villiers’ Toyota during the stage though both lost time in the early kilometres, Gordon losing a minute before the first checkpoint.

Gordon still lies second overall, nearly a minute down on Holowczyc, with de Villiers now third. Nasser Al-Attiyah continue to run sixth overall. The best man outside of the MINI, Hummer and Toyota squads is Portuguese driver Carlos Sousa, who is ninth overall for the Chinese Great Wall team.

Trucks: It’s Kamaz, But Not As We Know It
While the wait continues for the first Kamaz stage victory of the 2012 Dakar Rally, one of the Russian marque’s trucks has assumed the overall lead, but is that of Kazakh driver Artur Ardavichus who holds a 28 second advantage over Gerard de Rooy in the overall standings.

The best of the Kamaz works entries lies sixth overall in the hands of Eduard Nikolaev who was only eleventh best through the stage.

The best of the Kamaz Master team’s runners on stage three was instead Andrey Karginov who finished third behind Ardavichus and stage winner Miki Biasion.

Ales Loprais was fourth fastest on stage and takes fifth place in the overall standings behind Hans Stacey but ahead of the Kamazs of Nikolaev and Dakar debutant Ayrat Mardeev who now lie sixth and seventh overall.

2012 Dakar Rally Stage Three Results

Bikes

Quads

Cars

Trucks

Overall standings after stage three

Bikes

Quads

Cars

Trucks

2012 Dakar Rally

Santa Rosa de la Pampa – San Rafael
Cars 290km; Bikes, Quads, Trucks 295km

After New Year’s Day’s short opener the Dakar got down to business with a stage that began the 2012 race’s route to the Pacific coast of Chile. The route began with fast turns before ending in dunes comprised of volcanic grey sand. After the opening stage presented very little room for the gaps to develop in the general standings, stage two shuffled the order in all four classes.

Bikes: Coma And Despres – Battle Rejoined
After a disappointing showing on the opening stage triple class champion Cyril Despres got his quest for a fourth title back on course on stage two. Running thirteenth through the stage Despres lead at the first of the four intermediate checkpoints.

Through the first 140km the Frenchman was 26 seconds faster than long time rival and fellow KTM rider Marc Coma, with stage one winner Francisco Lopez third fastest at the first split time. However, as the stage continued, the terrain becoming increasingly rocky before ending in sand dunes, Coma first gained on Despres before moving into the stage lead at the third timing point, just shy of the 200km mark.

Through the final 40km Coma pulled out another minute over Despres. Joan Berreda Bort was third fastest through the stage aboard his Husqvarna, with Lopez in fourth, falling to second in the overall standings behind Coma, but still ahead of Despres. Polish KTM rider Jakub Pryzgonski repeated his day one performance to take fifth on stage, and move up to fourth overall, one place ahead of Berreda Bort who has already accrued a five minute time penalty.

“It’s an incredible experience to be riding amongst the leaders and following guys like Coma, Chaleco or Jakub, because you have to ride fast and you learn a lot,” said Berreda Bort, who crashed out on the second stage of his Dakar debut last year. “I’m overjoyed. At the end, I eased off a bit, because my aim is to finish the Dakar and I didn’t want to have a crash on just the 2nd day, but I’m really happy with how I rode today.”

Both men moved up the rankings at the expense of Javier Pizzolito and American Quinn Cody, who lost 20 minutes to a mechanical problem on 50km from the end of the stage after keeping pace with the top three through the stage.

Jonah Street, the other high profile American in the bike field was forced out of the race after mechanical issues on the stage.

Quads: La Fuente Again
The day for the quads began with two of the riders excluded after scrutineering – Christophe Declerck and Antoine Leconte – being reinstated.

Sadly for Lukasz Laskawiec he looks unlikely to join them, but the Pole still ran through the day’s stage fastest of all the quads, over a minute faster than Sergio la Fuente who was credited with another stage win. La Fuente was over four minutes faster than defending champion Alejandro Patronelli, who now lies second in the overall standings 6:34 in arrears to the Uruguayan.

Tomas Maffei, Marcos Patronelli and Lucas Bonetto – the youngest man in the rally at just 20 years old – completed the top five.

Declerck claimed the sixth fastest stage time and lies in the same position in the overall standings.

Cars: The Champ Bounces Back
After a mechanical problem had lost him nine minutes on the first stage and left him to be towed in by teammate Robby Gordon 2011 winner Nasser Al-Attiyah was seemingly talking down his chances of a second Dakar success.

However, a stellar drive on the second stage put the Qatari back in contention, as he moved into sixth overall by virtue of his stage win, his deficit cut to eight minutes

Starting the stage 38th among the car class runners Al-Attiyah was always catching those ahead of him, both on the stage and in the standings. He had the 12th fastest time to the half way stage before breaking into the top five fastest with 60km remaining.

“We started in 38th position and we passed a lot of cars,” stated Al-Attiyah. “We broke the window and it was very, difficult because we took a lot of time to pass many cars. But I said we just had to keep a good strategy and had to show that we are still here. I don’t know how much time we took, but I hope we have a good time tomorrow. We must be more clever.”

At the end of the stage his lead over Stephane Peterhansel was nearly a minute, with Robby Gordon’s Hummer in third.

Before Al-Attiyah roared to the win Gordon was the man on form, leading the pack – headed by the MINIs of Peterhansel, Krzysztof Holowczyc and Nani Roma. However, a puncture lost him time in the second half of the stage, falling behind Al-Attiyah.

Third fastest today was still enough to move Gordon into second overall, ahead of Holowczyc, who lost time in the final kilometres of the stage, blaming a suspension too stiff over the uneven terrain, after being in-line to assume the rally lead from a delayed Leonid Novitskiy for much of the day.

Another man to fall foul of the stage – at the time of writing – is SMG Buggy driver Mattias Kahle, who finished tenth overall last year, but is yet to complete the second stage     

Trucks: De Rooy Takes The Lead
Stage two meant all change in the Truck standings.

Stage one winner Marcel van Vliet lost ten minutes on the stage, finishing ninth while MAN team leader Franz Echter dropped 20 minutes to stage winner Gerard de Rooy.

Echter had led the stage times in the early running before problems struck and de Rooy assumed the lead. The pair of works Kamaz drivers Eduard Nikolaev and Ayrat Mardeev made their first real impression on the overall standings, finishing second and fourth best on stage to signal Kamaz’s intent to defend their title.

The Russian pair were split by Hans Stacey’s Iveco on the stage, and in the overall standings. Fifth on the stage was taken by the Tatra crew led by driver Ales Loprais, to move into sixth overall, just 18 seconds off Kamaz privateer Artur Ardavichus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNlAki_VpDs

2012 Dakar Rally stage two results

Bikes

Quads

Cars

Trucks

Overall Standings After Stage Two

Bikes

Quads

Cars

Trucks

Nasser Al Attiyah

2011 Dakar winner Nasser Al Attiyah has admitted it is going to be a tall order to win the 2012 Dakar after a challenging day in the H3 Hummer.

Talking to the Dakar.com team he said:  “2 km from the finishing line on the special stage, we could smell something burning, because the fuel pump flexible had melted. Robby towed us to the finishing line and on the link stage we stopped with Lucas to repair it.”

Things were made harder after the assistance truck failed to arrive leaving Attiyah to take on the work himself. “We both spent two hours at work, because our assistance truck did not turn up. Afterwards, we had to stop every 100 km to put some more oil in.” he added

“Now I’m hoping that the mechanics will work well to solve this problem and especially to make sure there aren’t any more mishaps. As for victory, I’m not very confident any more, but I’ll have to keep on believing in my chances. Sometimes, that’s just what rally-raid driving is like”.

Lopez in action - Photo: Alfredo Escobar/Red Bull Content Pool

Mar del Plata – Santa Rosa de la Pampa
57km

The opening stage of the 2012 offered a relatively easy welcome to the 400-plus crews entered for the event. The 57km stage included some small dunes as the route headed away from Mar del Plata along the Atlantic coastline. However, the stage still caused problems for some high profile entries, and unfortunately ended in tragedy for one rider.

Bikes: Lopez Leads The Way
After spending much of 2011 recovering from injury Chilean rider Francisco Lopez got his third Dakar Rally off to the best possible start with a stage victory on his Aprilia. Lopez, who missed out on the class podium on the final stage last year completed the stage 14 seconds faster than defending champion Marc Coma. Javier Pizzolito and Quinn Cody claimed the third and fourth best times respectively, both on Hondas, with Jakub Pryzgonski fifth on his KTM.

“The first special of the Dakar is always more challenging,” said Lopez.  “Since you need to find your focus on the race, and the new GPS is somewhat smaller, so I really was very careful. Fortunately, the special’s last 20 kilometres were very fast and I was able to drive much more aggressively.”

Joan Berreda Bort was sixth – the best of the five man works Husqvarna squad, ahead of 22-year-old Dubai based Briton Sam Sunderland. Both Sunderland and Berreda Bort lay inside the top five at the stages first and only checkpoint, before Cody and Pryzgonski leapt ahead of them before stage’s end.

Cyril Despres – Coma’s great rival in the recent editions of the Dakar – was a comparatively lowly thirteenth – though on the short stage he dropped only 1:48 to Lopez.

After the stage had been completed by much of the field rally organisers confirmed that Argentine rider Jorge Boero had died after suffering a heart attack having fallen two kilometres from the end of the stage. Medical teams were with the 38-year-old within five minutes of his accident, but were unable to save him.

Quads: La Fuente Leads Depleted Field
After pre-event scrutineering  the strength of the Quad class took a hit. The qauds of Lukasz Laskawiec, Josef Machacek, Christophe Declerck, Rafal Sonik, Antoine Leconte, Norberto Cangani and Maciej Albinowski were all deemed too dissimilar to the production models they were meant to represent and are so ineligible for the General Classification.

Even so Pole Laskawiec completed the stage second fastest behind Sergio La Fuente. 2010 champion Marcos Patronelli was the second best GC eligible rider, nearly a minute in arrears to the Uruguayan pace setter.

Tomas Maffei, Pablo Sebastian Copetti and Ignatio Casale completed all South American top five.

Cars: MINI Dominate Day One
Team XRaid took the top three positions in the first stage with three men from their five strong team running the MINI All4 Racing. However the presumed team leader Stephane Peterhansel was only the third of the three men after completing the stage in 32:21, four seconds slower than Krzysztof Holowczyc, who in turn was five seconds slower than Russian Leonid Novitsky.

“Today’s special was very short,” Novitskiy pointed out, “so we put the pedal on the metal, especially in the sandy sector. We only found another car on the course, but I was able to overtake it without any problems. In short: a good result for a perfect day.”

Giniel de Villiers was the best non-MINI, coming in fourth in his new Toyota Hilux pickup, Robby Gordon fifth in his Hummer H3.

Gordon, who started the rally with his usual jump off the ceremonial start ramp, had run second to his 2012 teammate Nasser Al-Attiyah at the intermediate checkpoint, but oil pressure problems struck the Qatari, who was running first on the road by virtue of his position as defending champion. Gordon eventually towed the ailing Al-Attiyah to the end of the stage, though he was still scored 38^th fastest for the stage, losing nearly ten minutes.

“We had an engine oil pressure loss and preferred to wait for Robby to tow us to the finish,” said Al-Attiyah, “since we did not want to damage the engine. We will see, but this does not look good. And, whatever happens, this is not a good way to start the Dakar.”

Worse fortune still befell South African Alfie Cox was forced to retire on the opening stage, after his brand new Volvo XC-90 based vehicle was destroyed by a fire on the stage.

Trucks: Where Are Kamaz?
It may only be the earliest stages of the rally but there appears to be a serious threat to Kamaz’s recent domination of the event. The best representative of the Russian manufacturer was Kazakh privateer Artur Ardavichus who lies in fifth place during the first night on the Dakar. Meanwhile the best of the works Kamaz trucks was driven by Ayrat Mardeev who was eighth fastest on his 25th birthday.

Instead the top positions were shared equally between MAN and Iveco crews, Marcel van Vliet taking the best time for MAN, leading a Dutch 1-2 ahead of Gerard de Rooy, who avoided the same first stage disappointment as last year.

“I am happy to win the first stage, since I hoped to start the race this way,” said van Vliet. “We will see how things go from here. This is just the first stage, only 60 km long, and the race is obviously still very long. But, because we are a young team, people are not so focused on us as they are on the other big teams, but I think they will keep an eye on us too from now on.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvccXYnHRVg

2012 Dakar Rally Stage One Results

Bikes

Quads

Cars

Trucks

2012 Dakar Rally

Argentinian biker Jorge Martinez Boero has died following a crash on the opening stage of the 2012 Dakar Rally.

An official statement by the rally organisers says the 38-year-old suffered a fall two kilometres from the end of the 57km timed stage, suffering chest trauma and a subsequent cardiac arrest.

Medical teams were with Boero within five minutes of the accident but were unable to save his life as he died while being transferred to hospital by helicopter.

2012 was Boero’s second time entering the Dakar Rally, following on from his 2011 campaign in which he retired after five stages of the event. On that occasion he spent a night in the Atacama Desert after crashing on the stage an waited eight hours until he was recovered from a cliff edge.

Husqvarna Rallye Team by Speedbrain

The five riders of the factory supported Husqvarna Rallye Team by Speedbrain begin the 2012 Dakar Rally, aiming to give the manufacturer stage wins and overall podiums at the end of the marathon event.

The quintet – Portuguese Paulo Goncalves, Spaniards Joan Barreda and Jose Manuel Pellicer, and Brazil´s Ike Klaumann and Zé Hélio – have all put in intensive preparation ahead of the marathon event.

Goncalves is expected to lead the team, as a veteran of five previous Dakars, with a single stage win to his name – coming in the 2011 event.

The bike – the new Husqvarna TE 449 RR by Speedbrain – has also been extensively tested before the event and is one of the lightest machines in the race, where all the bikes are a maximum of 450cc for the first year.

The first of the 14 competitive stages of the 2012 Dakar Rally is a relayively easy introduction for the competitors, the timed element comprising just 57km as the race moves away from the Atlantic coast at Mar del Plata and into the Argentine interior.

The Checkered Flag will be covering the 2012 Dakar Rally with daily reports on the stages, covering all four classes in the event.

2012 Dakar Rally

The Dakar Rally is among the least predictable motorsport events of the year – more than 4,000km of competitive timed stages, across deserts, through valleys and over the Andes.

The 2012 edition of the famous event is set to the most wide open event since the Dakar moved to South America in 2009.

The route for 2012 marks the first major revision since the event emigrated to from its traditional home.  In every previous year in South America the event has started and ended in Buenos Aires with competitors racing from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific with a succession of stages in the Chilean desert.

2012 will push the Dakar’s boundaries out of Argentina and Chile and into Peru. Where in 2011 Arica marked the northernmost point of the route at Chile’s tip in 2012 the race pushes on into Peru, through Nazca – world famous for the mysterious Nazca Lines – and onto the finish in the capital city of Lima.

The Peruvian kilometres add more treacherous dunes to the route further complicating a route and an event where a mistake costs minutes, even hours, rather than seconds and a seemingly assured victory can disappear in an instant. Just think of Carlos Sainz, who rolled out 30 minute lead just four stages away from victory in 2009, handing victory to Giniel de Villiers.

Not only is the route an unknown, but the field of drivers and riders lining up in Mar Del Plata for the start also features some important revisions.

Almost certainly the most important of these is the withdrawal of the works VW squad – the manufacturer concentrating on their impending entry into the WRC. Even more importantly is that the all-conquering Race Touareg that have swept the Car Class wins since the shift to South America have not passed into the hands of privateers – in contrast to the Mitsubishi equipment left surplus after they pulled their Dakar factory team.

Subsequently Mark Miller and Carlos Sainz do not appear on the entry list, while their teammates in 2011 race for two different teams in 2012.

Giniel de Villiers enters with a brand new Toyota Hilux Pickup he describes as being near the level of the Volkswagen. The South African has the enviable distinction of not retiring from any of his previous seven entries in the Car Class, and only missing the top ten on a single occasion, a record he is expecting to protect in aiming for a top five overall result.

Defending champion Nasser Al-Attiyah, however, swaps the Touareg for the two-wheel drive Hummer H3 of Robby Gordon Motorsports.

Gordon’s Hummers – and the American himself – have become a popular staple of the Dakar and 2012 could be the best chance yet for the team – Gordon drives the second vehicle – to clinch overall honours.

The Hummer’s weak spot in past years has been its two-wheel drive. While the regulations allow some advantages over the four wheel-drive cars – an automated tyre inflation system for example – and the Hummer has always been strong in the dunes the more WRC-esque tracks that have typified the Argentine stages of recent years have allowed the VWs and BMWs to build-up a lead early on.

Could the change in route play further in the hands of the Hummer pilots?

Nasser Al-Attiyah wil defend his title in 2012. Volkswagen will not.

In order to win they will still have to beat the assembled X-Raid team – all running the MINI debuted by Guerlain Chicherit last year. The Frenchman does not return for another Dakar, but a five car team led by multiple champion Stephane Peterhansel will still take the start on New Year’s Day.

Alongside Peterhansel Nani Roma, Krzysztof Holowczyc, Leonid Novitsky and Ricardo Leal dos Santos all remain with the team into 2012. Peterhansel’s 2011 tilt was blunted primarily by recurring punctures that dropped him behind the VWs, Roma retiring on stage nine.

Peterhansel and Roma will likely lead the team in the General Classification again, but Holowczyc could be the dark horse of the team, after winning the Silk Way Rally Dakar Series event for the team in 2011.

The Truck class, too, has lost some significant players. Drivers Vladimir Chagin and Firdaus Kabirov – who have won nine of the last ten Dakars – have both retired from driving the mighty works Kamaz trucks, though Chagin remains team manager.

Can Kamaz's crushing grip on the Truck Class survive the retirements of Chagin and Kabirov?

Their departure leave Eduard Nikolaev – who finished third behind them in 2011 – as team leader ahead of Aryat Mardeev – making his Dakar debut as a driver after two previous outings as third man in the cab for his father Ilgizar – in a Kamaz armada cut to just two works entries.

Just as in the cars the thinning of the dominant force presents opportunities for the likes of Ales Loprais – who came as close as anyone to toppling the Kamaz domination last year – winning two stages in his Tatra before retiring with engine failure on stage ten.

Franz Echter – the best non-Kamaz finisher in 2011 – leads a five strong MAN team that could replace Kamaz as a dominant force this year, while Dutchman Gerard de Rooy will be driving an Iveco truck, aiming for his third podium, but hoping to better his 2011 when he retired on the very first stage.  

The make-up of the bike and quad classes is relatively similar to that of 2011.

Marc Coma and Cyril Despres will start as favourites after splitting the last six victories between them for KTM. Lining up behind them, and hoping to end ahead of them are Helder Rodrigues, Francisco ‘Chaleco’ Lopez – the Chilean has become one of the quiet stars of the South American Dakar and only missed out on third in 2011 on the final stage due to a broken shock absorber.

Marc Coma will renew his perennial battle with Cyril Despres, each man looking for their fourth Dakar win

Pal Anders Ullevalseter – almost certainly is his instantly recognisable bright green again – runs a privateer KTM and Frenchman David Casteu joins Yamaha’s effort after two years heading Sherco’s team.

Casteu’s spot on the Sherco is taken by Frans Verhoeven to form a combination easily capable of a top ten overall as are Americans Jonah Street and Quinn Cody, on Yamaha and Honda machinery, Frenchman Olivier Pain (Yamaha) and Paulo Goncalves, leading another manufacturer into the Dakar – Husqvarna.

The final class – the quads – is the most recent addition to the Dakar, debuting in 2009. Since then three different men – Josef Machacek and Argentine brothers Marcos and Alejandro Patronelli have won the class, and all three will contest the 2012 trying to grab a second success.

Though all three men won by huge margins, even by Dakar standards, the competition is as close as any other class on stage. 2012 follows the recent pattern of being split between local riders – led by the Patronellis and fellow Argentines Tomas Maffei and Paulo Sebastian Copetti – and Europeans led by Polish pair Lukasz Laskawiec and Rafal Sonik, the former standing on the third step of the podium in 2011 on his Dakar debut, and Christophe Declerck aiming to better his pair of fourth places from 2010 and 2011.

The 2012 Dakar Rally begins for the 450-odd crews comprising 742 individuals on New Year’s Day with the ceremonial start in Mar Del Plata before a fortnight on one of the hardest races in the world.  

The Checkered Flag will have stage-by-stage reports of the event, following all four classes from the first stage to the last.

2012 Dakar Rally. Wide Open.

The duo guided their Toyota Land Cruiser through a tough Dakar route, but the nature of the route took it’s toll on the Land Cruiser during the event.

Damage to the suspension, exhaust and brakes, along with numerous incidents throughout did not faze the experienced pairing from completing the event.

The Land Cruiser was forced to enter the main class of the Dakar, competing against the works-backed entries, after minor changes were not ratified to enter the T2 class in time for the event.

After the event, Foj said “I’ve completed 20 Dakars now and this was spectacular. The racing was tough and the heat was almost unbearable at times, but nothing can match the excitement and adventure of competing in this contest”.

“This was a massive challenge for the team but everybody has done great and we finished with one vehicle right up there in the rankings”, said Julian Baldwin, the Managing Director of Cooper Tire Europe.

Jesús Calleja and Ignacio Santamaria in the second Toyota Cooper Tires entry saw their charge ended with radiator damage on the seventh stage.

The Toyota Cooper Tires team fitted 255/75R15 and 245/75R15 STTs to the Land Cruiser for the event.

407 teams of bikers and drivers set off from Buenos Aires and almost exactly half – 204 – of them returned to the Argentine capital last weekend after 9,000km and 13 stages of racing on some of the most challenging terrain the planet can offer. Along the way the event had thrown up just as many shocks and stories as ever, with racing for position continuing all the way to Buenos Aires. After The Checkered Flag covered the event with stage reports, now is the time to look back on the 2011 Dakar Rally.

Everything about the Rally says it should have been Carlos Sainz’s year.

Again.

The former WRC champion entered the event as the defending champion, leading the works Volkswagen team of four Red Bull sponsored Touareg III. He ended the rally as the most successful man ever in a single Dakar – taking stage wins on seven of the 13 special stages – but in third place among the car class.

The story was one typical to endurance events the world over. The Spaniard was near flawless, only finishing outside of the top five on a stage once, but that one mistake may have cost him the rally victory. On stage eleven following amidst the dust kicked up by teammate and rival Nasser Al-Attiyah, Sainz pitched his VW into a hole, ripping off the right-front wheel. He lost over an hour repairing the car, and dropped to third.

Nasser Al-Attiyah and co-driver Timo Gottschalk celebrate their title in Buenos Aires

The direct beneficiary of Sainz’s problems that day was Giniel de Villiers – the South African who took the rally win in 2009 when Sainz similarly hit trouble a few stages from home – but the real beneficiary was Al-Attiyah.

The Qatari has taken the class lead from Sainz after stage eight in battle over the battle of the sand dunes of the Chilean Atacama Desert. The battle between the two had always been close – Al-Attiyah won the pivotal stage eight by just six minutes but it was still enough for the lead to change – and was frequently ill tempered.

Being teammates faced with the unenviable task of navigating the dunes the pair frequently stuck together. Footage from the stage saw them racing each other through the stage – rather than following patiently – and Sainz more than once accused Al-Attiyah of making contact with him – including on stage eight, pushing Sainz onto a dune where he would ultimately get stuck.

Once Sainz had ruled himself out of contention Al-Attiyah had nearly an hour’s lead on de Villiers and with only a pair of stages remaining – and those some of the less treacherous on the route – Al-Attiyah eased to victory, leading a Volkswagen 1-2-3 at the top of the standings back to Buenos Aires. In contrast to his teammates de Villiers had a quiet rally, almost under the radar while battle raged ahead, still second was just reward to largely trouble free run.

Only American Mark Miller spoilt the Touareg domination. A big crash in the early stages had sent him plummeting down the order, and though he continued in the rally (and finished sixth) he was effectively the support car for his teammates.

The main opposition to the VWs came from the Team X-Raid BMW X3s.

Throughout the Rally the two teams dominated the standings – locking out the stage wins between them, though only one went to the BMW drivers through Stephane Peterhansel.

The Frenchman was always the best hope of stopping the VWs but spent much of the Rally’s route in Chile being stalked by punctures. On one stage he suffered four punctures, ending the stage on one still deflated tyre – even the heavily modified racing machines of the Dakar Rally only carry three spare tyres.

The punctures struck just the day after Peterhansel had won his only stage, signalling what could have been the beginning of a great battle, but it was never to happen.

Chicherit and the MINI were surprising dependable - day one problems and test day smash aside

Peterhansel’s puncture misery was just part of a deeply disappointing rally for the German X-Raid squad. Guerlain Chicherit – driving the MINI Countryman – had significant mechanical problems on just the first day that knocked him out of contention. Leonid Novitskiy and Orlando Terranova both retired – after stage five and seven respectively, before Chicherit comprehesivly destroyed the MINI during a test run on the half-way rest day.

That left only three BMWs to return to Buenos Aires – Peterhansel, Ricardo Leal do Santos and Krzysztof Holowczyc – the Pole finishing fifth in class, justifying the X-Raid team’s faith in promoting him from the ranks of the privateers.

Robby Gordon had a Dakar he would rather forget.

The still two-wheel-drive Hummer began by struggling for grip on the rain-soaked dirt tracks of the early stages, before the man (who is quickly becoming a Dakar legend in many ways) stepped into one of the sort of stories than often means the best Dakar stories are often about those who don’t win.

Robby Gordon's jump off the ceremonial start ramp - a highlight of a awful Rally for the Hummer driver

Slipping wide on a corner in stage two Gordon wedged his Hummer onto a boulder, and robbed of reverse by a transmission problem he went looking for help. What he found was a group of locals and an old Fiat – in a colour of orange so similar to Gordon’s Speed Energy backed car conspiracy theorists could argue it was publicity stunt. The tiny Fiat pulled the Hummer off the rock – not so much David slaying Goliath, but David offering Goliath a leg-up over a wall – and Gordon went back his way.

However, his way only lasted until the crossing of the Andes and the road section on the way to stage four, when a bearing failure in a front wheel left him stranded, and when his teammate Eliseo Salazar drove by – apparently in the belief that Gordon only had a minor problem – Gordon’s hopes of continuing the Rally were over, the start of the closed before he could reach it.

Or so it seemed.

Instead of taking defeat, Gordon completed the stage by night, only then deciding to plead his case with the rally organisers, but to no avail. His rally was over, and with it the Dakar lost a little colour – and not just because of the retina searing orange.

Gordon’s would be crown of the best man behind the VW and BMWs fell to Christian Lavielle, who finished eighth, nearly eight hours behind Al-Attiyah’s time. Tim Coronel – brother of WTCC driver Tom – finished the rally 36th in class to claim the honour of being the best of the three solo drivers in the McRae buggies to reach the finish line.

Christian Lavielle finished eighth, the best man outside of the VW and BMW camps

The race on the bikes was all about two men – Cyril Despres and Marc Coma. The two of them had shared the last five Dakar Rally bike wins, so automatically began as favourites, despite the class moving from 690cc bikes to smaller, lighter 450cc machines.

Still the KTMs remained the class of the field, Coma and Despres both able to master the lighter bikes on the stages, while others – including Pal Anders Ullevalseter, who finished second in 2010 – struggled to adapt after years of riding the 690cc KTMs.

Coma and Despres dominated the rally, beginning with only seconds between them. However, while their speeds suggested they could have kept up that level of competition all rally, a penalty intervened. Despres was penalised 10 minutes for an offence in start zone for stage four. That gave Coma the buffer he needed at the top of the standings, as he and Despres matched each other through the rest of the Rally he never lost the lead.

Marc Coma avenged his penalty strewn 2010 loss with a flawless run to victory

It was a turn around for Coma. Twelve months ago it had been he who gathered penalties through the event, handing the win to Despres.

Despite twice getting lost in the desert Portuguese Helder Rodrigues finished third in class, taking the final step on the podium on the final stage at the expense of Francisco ‘Chaleco’ Lopez Contardo. The Chilean was one of those expected to put up the strongest challenge to Coma and Despres – he won three stages on his Dakar debut in 2010 and continued to improve in other Rally Raids.

However, ‘Chaleco’s 2011 run was underwhelming. He took a sole stage win, an ever popular one in Chile, but had already lost contact with the lead pair before the race left Argentina. Third appeared to be his until just 22km from the end when the suspension on his Aprilia ended its Dakar Rally a little too early.

A ten minute penalty proved pivotal to Cyril Despres' title chase

The time lost saw him slip 29 minutes behind Rodrigues whose trouble free run scored him third place, 100 minutes behind rally winner Coma.

Another hard luck story on the bikes belongs to Ruben Faria. Initially, the Portuguese – teammate to Despres – looked to have won stages on two separate occasions.

He topped the initial times on the very first stage of the rally, only to be handed a one minute penalty for speeding – by the merest of margins – through a populated area. With that disappointment still fresh Faria looked to have taken another stage – stage six – but again it was not to be. Again, there was a penalty when organisers discovered Faria had not stopped for the mandatory 15 minutes at the refuelling stop – instead only waiting five minutes before resuming the day’s racing. When the remaining time was added to his stage time, Faria dropped to seventh. He would finish eighth overall, Spaniard Juan Pedrero Garcia taking the fifth place Faria held for much of the race.

Just like last year, the quad class was dominated by Argentines and Patronellis. Both groups started slowly enough, Czech pairing Martin Plechaty and Josef Machacek topping the first stage while Marcos Patronelli – last year’s champion – lost six hours in penalties, again just on the first day.

In fairness Marcos was never aiming to win – having suffered two broken legs in a practice crash only a few months before the start simply being at the startline was enough as he stated he was not aiming to win, but only to support his older brother Alejandro in his own race.

Alejandro Patronelli followed on from his younger brother in the quad class

Marcos’ race lasted only until stage four, when a crash put him out, but true to his word he continued as part of the support crew to follow his brother’s progress. Alejandro was already well on the way to upholding family honour.

He took the class lead and, though he lost it briefly after a poor stage seven, he followed it with his third and fourth stage wins of the event and he was reinstalled at the top of the class.

While his pace had got him there, the above average rate of attrition among the quad men – already by far the smallest class on the rally – helped keep him there.

Both Plechaty and Machacek first faltered, then retired leaving an increasingly all Argentine affair at the top of the standings, Alejandro leading Tomas Maffei, Sebastian Halpern and Sebastian Copetti.

Halpern was the first to fall away. After starting stage five in third, just three minutes off the leader of the trio – Maffei at the time – he lost over 40 minutes on two consecutive stages, ending – in hindsight – his chances of victory and handing the leaving Maffei to continue the challenge as a solo effort.

Then came stage eight.

One of the most difficult of the 2011 route the dunes on the route from Antofagasta to Copiapo proved to be Maffei’s undoing.

After starting the stage in the class lead he ended the 508km stage 13 hours, six of which were penalties, adrift of Patronelli. The way was now clear of Patronelli to enjoy an unpressured run back to Buenos Aires. Halpern finished second 59 minutes distant, though even that was the result of making up chunks of time on a cruising Patronelli such was the advantage.

Behind the battle for third went all the way to the wire. Pole Lukasz Laskawiec was the story of the second week of the rally. While the sand dunes of the stages through the Atacama Desert were swalloping some riders Laskawiec – a Dakar rookie – appeared to have found his terrain. From stage seven onwards he shot up the leader board, taking top five stage times as a matter of course. He moved from twelfth, to tenth, to eighth, to sixth, to fourth until he was just minutes from a podium that looked hugely unlikely just seven days earlier.

And he saved his best performance until the final stage and a battle with Christophe Declerck for the final step on the podium. The pair swapped the stage lead back and fourth, Declerck clinging onto third on his Polaris – amongst a class dominated by Yamaha machinery. At the finish line it was Laskawiec, both for the stage win and third position, beating his more experienced teammate Machacek, who had long since bowed out of proceedings.

Sadly, dare it be said like the other classes, there was no surprise in the Truck category. Everyone expected the race to be dominated by the Russian Kamaz trucks, led by drivers Vladimir Chagin and Firdaus Kabirov, and it duly was.

Vladimir Chagin - The Tsar

It was Chagin who eventually took the win, after a rally of swinging fortunes between the man known as ‘The Tsar’ and Kabirov, his faithful second in command. The lead changed hands between them seven times over the course of the event. However, the Kamaz squad were followed rather closer than may have been expected.

The man doing the following was not Gerard de Rooy, nor was it Wulfert van Ginkel. For both Dutchmen the Rally came to an end before the end of the first stage.

De Rooy retired after a jump – and landing – in his Iveco rig seemingly reaggravated the back injury that forced to him to miss the 2010 edition.

Van Ginkel, however, didn’t even make it that far.

He, like Robby Gordon, was another to fall on the Rally’s road stages – often longer than the timed special stages. The Ginaf driver, who finished sixth last year, swerved to avoid something in the road, and burst a tyre, tipping the truck onto its side and into retirement in a very public location.

No, it was Ales Loprais. His Tatra became a fixture chasing down the two leaders – ocassionally splitting them on stage, but it was stage six and seven which made Loprais a hero as he beat the Kamaz hoard to two stage wins – four years after his last successes. The tiny, family backed team, had beaten the Red Bull backed team with trucks based on those used by the Russian military.

However, the romantic giant-killing was short lived. The following stage Loprais slipped back into third – a safe distance (from the Kamaz point of view) from the leaders and on stage nine Loprais pulled out, his truck having an engine problem on the stage that forced him to abandon the route.

Loprais out it was left to the Kamaz convoy to settle matters. Eduard Nikolaev filled the void in third place to put Kamaz on all three podium steps and finally, in the closing stages, Ilgizar Mardeev completed the domination when he moved into fourth, pushing Franz Echter down into fifth in his MAN – the best placed man not in a Kamaz.

Though the results may not have been surprising the 2011 was a worthy addition to the history of the storied event. Battles raged, challenges came and went and stories unfolded, not just at the top of the order but among the privateers and those not lucky enough to finish.

There was sadly – as there unfortunately often is – a tragic side to the Dakar. In an eerily similar incident to 2010 a spectator was killed on the opening stage when a car went into a group of spectators, two people were killed in Chile in separate incidents and finally a man was killed in a collision with a rally competitor on a non-timed road section of stage eleven.

The 2011 Dakar Rally

2011 Dakar Rally Final Overall Positions:

Bikes:
1 Marc Coma (KTM) in 51:25m00
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +15m04
3 Hélder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +1:40m20
4 Francisco López Contardo (Aprilia) +2:09m45
5 Juan Pedrero García (KTM)+3:07m03
6 Pål Anders Ullevålseter (KTM) +3:32m56
7 Jean de Azevedo (KTM) +3:59m38
8 Ruben Faria (KTM) +4:13m01
9 Quinn Cody (Honda) +4:52m10
10 Jacek Czachor (KTM) +6:13m41

Quads:
1 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) in 63:49m47
2 Sebastián Halpern (Yamaha) +59m53
3 Łukasz Łaskawiec (Yamaha) +6:17m38
4 Christophe Declerck (Polaris) +6:18m30
5 Sebastian Copetti (Yamaha) +7:14m59
6 Jorge Santamarina (Honda) +11:00m07
7 Tomas Maffei (Yamaha) +18:01m11
8 Daniel Mazzucco (Can-Am) +25:11m54
9 Camélia Liparoti (Yamaha) +25:15m16
10 Francisco López Balart (Can-Am) +35:55m01

Cars:
1 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) in 45:16m16
2 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +49m41
3 Carlos Sainz (VW)+1:20m38
4 Stéphane Peterhansel (BMW) +1:43m48
5 Krzysztof Hołowczyc (BMW)+4:11m21
6 Mark Miller (VW) +4:54m42
7 Ricardo Leal dos Santos (BMW) +6:50m07
8 Christian Lavieille (Nissan) +7:57m18
9 Guilherme Spinelli (Mitsubishi) +8:23m27
10 Matthias Kahle (SMG – Buggy) +15:11m56

Trucks:
1 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) in 48:28m54
2 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) +30m04
3 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +3:20m17
4 Ilgizar Mardeev (Kamaz) +5:44m56
5 Franz Echter (MAN)+5:45m37
6 Pep Vila (Iveco) +7:16m01
7 Marcel van Vliet (MAN) +10:42m03
8 Artur Ardavichus (Kamaz) +11:09m45
9 Teruhito Sugawara (Hino) +14:21m28
10 Mathias Behringer (MAN) +17:37m35

After two weeks on one of the hardest races on earth the surviving riders and drivers of the 2011 Dakar Rally had just 181km of racing stage between them and the end of the rally, back where it all began on New Year’s Day in Buenos Aires. In spirit perhaps more of a parade than the hard fought special stage the short stage lent itself to a more relaxed day with few position changes, though the Dakar Rally had a cruel blow to lend to one of the top bikers and a final battle for the podium that went all the way to the Argentine capital.

Bikes: Verhoeven Takes The Final Stage

The short stage was always likely to see stage times bunched to together and swaps of the lead even over the course of the very short day, and so it proved to be on the bikes. The stage ended with the top four bikers covered by less than a minute with Frans Verhoeven taking his first victory of the 2011 event at the last attempt, his BMW crossing the line just four seconds faster than the Yamaha of Helder Rodrigues.

Jean de Azevedo took a surprise third place on the stage, easily his best stage result of the Rally, but it was behind him the celebrations centred.

Champion elect Marc Coma was leading the way on the road, holding a sixteen minute lead over Cyril Despres, who would be the next rider unleashed onto the final stage two minutes later. The chances of Coma losing his advantage were slim and Despres could only keep pace with him through the stage. Despres would win the final battle between the pair, his stage time 92 seconds better than Coma’s but only enough to chip the lead minutely back to 15m04.

“This victory is the reward of all the hard work, the reward of many years and a lot of tensions over the last few days,” said Coma. “It is the bonus you get for steering right and for so many sacrifices over the years. I have to pay tribute to all the people in my team, who supported me. We had ambitious goals and to reach them we had to have the best, people made for the Dakar and willing to all work towards the same goal. As anyone in the Dakar, we had tough times.”

The continued rivalry between the two – and Coma’s win – put both of them now on three Dakar wins each.

There was, however, late disappointment for Francisco Lopez Contardo. Having sat in third overall since the fourth stage the bottom step of the podium would have prepared for the Chilean, and ‘Chaleco’ was ready to take that step until just 22km from the end of the rally.

When the suspension on his Aprilia gave in.

Time ticked away and even though Aprilia stablemate Alain Duclos was able to tow a forlorn Lopez across the line the rescue and retrieval had taken 29 minutes too long, the final step on the podium going to Rodrigues.

Quads: Last Minute Laskawiec

Aside from the dominance of the overall standings by Alejandro Patronelli it is easy to make the case that the man of the quads in the second week of the Dakar has been Pole Lukasz Laskawiec.

Before the final stage he had recorded six consecutive top five stage finishes and moved from tenth overall to fourth when he took the start of the stage. Among those six results he had not yet won a stage, but that changed by the time he reach Buenos Aires as the charging Laskawiec took one final place in the overall standings to end his first Dakar third in class.

The stage – and the battle for third – was between Laskwiec and Christophe Declerck. The Frenchman was tasked with opening the stage on his Polaris, and from the first of the time waypoints he was losing grounf to Laskawiec, well on his way to the stage win even at half way. The final margin of 4m30 was more than enough to overturn the advantage Declerck began the day with.

Third on stage was Alejandro Patronelli, on his way to a coronation at Buenos Aires with an hour’s lead. His ‘nearest’ challenger – Sebastian Halpern – closed out his Dakar fourth on stage with Rocha Sergio la Fuente fifth.

Cars: Unlucky Seven For Sainz

Contrarily Carlos Sainz is the most successful man on the 2011 Dakar Rally, as he picked up his seventh stage win of the year on the final stage. However, the champion’s laurels went to his Volkswagen teammate Nasser Al-Attiyah, who easily held onto his significant advantage over the final stage, ending the day just 38 seconds behind Sainz on the stage.

The final stage – like all those that went before was dominated by the VW Touaregs and BMW X3s of the leading team’s. Krzysztof Holowczyc was the sole member of the X-Raid team of BMWs to finish in the stage top five, surrounded by the fleet of four Touareg’s – Giniel de Villiers and Mark Miller fourth and fifth, the former holding onto the second place he inherited after Sainz’s misfortune on stage eleven.

“We did it,” said an ecstatic Al-Attiyah. “I am so happy! We drove a good, clean stage. I was just thinking about the finish line. It means a lot to win a Dakar, for me, for my people, for my country and for my team. It is a great victory. It’s hard to explain everything that goes through your head. But it is a very nice feeling. We demonstrated that we have the strongest team in the world. It is the third time the team has won a Dakar. It is also the biggest moment in my career. I think that now people will finally know where Qatar is located.”

Sainz was pragmatic in defeat; “Before racing a Dakar, you know it will be tough. All Dakar raids are tough. It’s like that. No, I am not disappointed. This is how the race goes.”

Stephane Peterhansel – a man who’s Dakar has been dogged by bad luck (mostly in the form of punctures) – finished the stage sixth to hold fourth overall.

Guilherme Spinelli was again the best man from outside the two top teams, ending the stage seventh and the rally ninth, missing out on the ‘best other’ honour overall to eighth place Christian Lavielle and his Nissan.

Trucks: Chagin Leads The Kamaz Convoy

Was there ever a doubt that a Kamaz driver would win the truck class? A lead that swapped back and fourth Vladimir Chagin and Firdaus Kabirov ended in the possession of Chagin, though the final stage win went to Kabirov who finished the Rally 30 minutes adrift of his team leader.

“The last stage was very fast but I spent it in the dust and there was not much to do,” explained Kabirov. “Anyway, my chances to win had been wiped out a few days ago when I lost a lot of time. But I am not disappointed; what a joy, because we have three Kamaz trucks in the first three positions in the standings. Moreover, I also know that Vladimir Chagin is faster than me. He completely deserves this new victory.”

The Kamaz crews shared the final stage podium with German Franz Echter, who finished fifth overall, less than a minute from breaking up the leading Kamaz quartet.

2011 Dakar Rally Stage Thirteen Results:

Bikes:
1 Frans Verhoeven (BMW) in 1:25m07
2 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +0:00m05
3 Jean de Azevedo (KTM) +0:00m19
4 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:00m44
5 Marc Coma (KTM) +0:02m16

Quads:
1 Lukasz Laskawiec (Yamaha) in 1:35m00
2 Christophe Declerck (Polaris) +0:04m11
3 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) +0:07m13
4 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:08m48
5 Rocha Sergio la Fuente (Yamaha) +0:16m14

Cars:
1 Carlos Sainz (VW) in 1:16m08
2 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) +0:00m38
3 Krzysztof Holoczyz (BMW) +0:01m25
4 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:01m58
5 Mark Miller (VW) +0:02m02

Trucks:
1 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) in 1:33m25
2 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) +0:01m15
3 Franz Echter (MAN) +0:02m02
4 Marcel van Vliet (MAN) +0:02m20
5 Ilgizar Mardeev (Kamaz) +0:03m45

Final Overall Standings

Bike
1 Marc Coma (KTM) in 51:25m00
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:15m04
3 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +1:40m20
4 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +2:09m45
5 Juan Pedrero Garcia (KTM) +3:07m03

Quad
1 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) in 63:49:47
2 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:59m53
3 Lukasz Laskawiec (Yamaha) +6:17m38
4 Christophe Declerck (Polaris) +6:18m30
5 Sebastian Copetti (Yamaha) +7:14m59

Car
1 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) in 45:16m16
2 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:49m41
3 Carlos Sainz (VW) +1:20m38
4 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +1:43m48
5 Krzysztof Holoczyz (BMW) +4:11m21

Truck
1 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) in 48:28m54
2 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) +0:30m04
3 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +3:20m17
4 Ilgizar Mardeev (Kamaz) +5:44m56
5 Franz Echter (MAN) +5:45m57

Stage Twelve marked the penultimate stage of the 2011 Dakar Rally, and the final ‘real’ challenge for the 205 crews authorised to take the start of the special. With Saturday’s final stage looking like more of a straightforward task in comparison, those in the lead needed to take the special with caution. Although it would now be difficult for those behind to make up ground, those ahead could still throw it all away – as proven by Carlos Sainz who lost over an hour on the preceding stage. With the start of the special too narrow for the trucks, they started from the 237km point. Heavy rain made conditions extremely difficult, which resulted in the cars’ special being split into two with a neutralised section in the middle.

Bikes: Despres takes the stage win, but Coma still in control

Cyril Despres opened the special after his stage win yesterday, and set the pace early on, leading for most of the way. However, Marc Coma attacked towards the end of the stage. The Spaniard overturned a 1m45 deficit to Despres at the fourth and final checkpoint, winning the stage by 37 seconds.

“Today was complicated due to all the rain that fell last night,” said Coma, whose lead over Despres at the head of the general standings lies at more than 16 seconds ahead of the final stage. “As a result, it was a very technical stage, like in endurance racing. But it went fine. There is still a 190-km stage left to race tomorrow. 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: “I had to go on the attack, it’s a bit 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. At least it’s good to not have any regrets. 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.”

As has been the case throughout the rally, the KTM pair were some way ahead of the competition. Helder Rodrigues, fourth overall, finished the stage in third, over seven minutes off Coma. Francisco Lopez Contardo, who has been the best of the rest behind the leading pair for much of the rally, was fourth, just ahead of Quinn Alexis Cody, the American debutant putting in another impressive performance.

Alain Duclos, Henk Knuiman and Teus Visser came unstuck in the tricky conditions, missing the 63km loop before CP4, instead taking the day’s truck route. They are likely to receive heavy time penalties – Knuiman had been lying in tenth position coming into the stage.

Quads: Declerck flies to stage victory, Patronelli cruising to the rally win

Christophe Declerck came out on top in a tight three-way fight for the stage win in the quad category. The Polaris rider finished up fourteen seconds ahead of Stage Eleven winner Sebastian Halpern, with Lukasz Laskawiec two-and-a-half minutes behind Declerck.

General standings leader Alejandro Patronelli clearly took it easy on the stage, finishing 8m28 behind the winner, fourth fastest. The Argentine still holds a healthy 58 minute lead overall over compatriot Halpern.

Cars: Sainz recovers to take stage victory, Al-Attiyah cautious

Sainz recovered from losing over an hour on Stage Eleven to take his sixth stage win of the rally and his 23^rd career Dakar win. The Spaniard started the stage 14^th on the road, but overtook ten competitors through the mud thrown up by those in front. Despite a suffering a puncture, he beat VW teammate Giniel de Villiers by 2m43. The result strengthens Sainz’s third place overall, ahead of Stephane Peterhansel.

“It went well,” said Sainz after the stage. “This victory is a small consolation. We drove well. We had to overtake a lot of competitors. There was a lot of dust and we had a puncture. But the main thing is that we finished the day and Stephane Peterhansel didn’t get any closer to us.”

Nasser Al-Attiyah was understandably cautious on the penultimate stage, with his general standings lead made far more comfortable by Sainz’s issues on the previous test. He finished the stage in third, 6m11 behind Sainz. His overall lead stands at 48m21 over de Villiers with just the one stage to go. The Qatari’s first Dakar win is well and truly in sight.

“It’s a very difficult feeling, you know because you need a lot of concentration from the start until the finish,” said Al-Attiyah. “You don’t want to make any mistakes. It really was the hardest stage of my life, because I had to keep concentrated and not make any mistakes. Sometimes I was going fast, sometimes slow because I needed to keep my concentration and keep the same pace, but it was ok. We finished the stage without any problems and I’m really quite happy.”

Trucks: Chagin heading towards seventh title

Vladimir Chagin continued where he left off on Stage Eleven, scoring his seventh stage win of the 2011 edition, his 63^rd career win. The “Tsar” defeated Kamaz teammate and fellow Russian Firdaus Kabirov by a slim 48 second margin over the trucks’ shorter route, extending the gap between the pair to 31m19. Spaniard Pep Vila impressed again after finishing second on Stage Eleven to finish third on Twelve in his Iveco, 4m29 behind Chagin.

2011 Dakar Rally Stage Twelve Results

Bikes:
1 Marc Coma (KTM) in 6:42m42
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:00m37
3 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +0:07m21
4 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:10m03
5 Quinn Alexis Cody (Aprilia) +0:15m43

Quads:
1 Christophe Declerck (Polaris) in 8:30m07
2 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:00m14
3 Lukasz Laskawiec (Yamaha) +0:02m32
4 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) +0:08m28
5 Pablo Copetti (Yamaha) +0:33m33

Cars:
1 Carlos Sainz (VW) in 5:37m18
2 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:02m43
3 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) +0:06m11
4 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +0:06m55
5 Krzysztof Holowczyc  (BMW) +0:13m11

Trucks:
1 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) in 2:45m34
2 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) +0:00m48
3 Pep Vila (Iveco) +0:04m29
4 Franz Echter (MAN) +0:06m43
5 Hugo Duisters (Iveco) +0:07m45

Overall Standings After Stage Twelve

Bike
1 Marc Coma (KTM) in 49:57m37
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:16m36
3 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:59m27
4 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +1:42m31
5 Juan Pedrero Garcia (KTM) +3:06m14

Quad
1 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) in 62:07m34
2 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:58m18
3 Christophe Declerck (Polaris) +6:21m32
4 Lukasz Laskawiec (Yamaha) +6:24m51
5 Pablo Copetti (Yamaha) +7:00m02

Car
1 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) in 43:59m30
2 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:48m21
3 Carlos Sainz (VW) +1:21m16
4 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +1:41m29
5 Krzysztof Holowczyc (BMW) +4:10m44

Truck
1 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) in 46:54m14
2 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) +0:31m19
3 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +3:15m45
4 Ilgizar Mardeev (Kamaz) +5:42m26
5 Franz Echter (MAN) +5:44m40

Following the long trek over the Andes on Stage Ten, a 370km special lay in wait for the competitors on Stage Eleven, as the 2011 Dakar Rally begins to reach its conclusion. The route had been adjusted and the special split into two, with the addition of a neutralised section, with sections of the road having been washed away by heavy rain. Rather than the planned 662km marathon, the riders and drivers would now only be timed over 370km, although the challenge still remained a tough one.

Sadly, the rally was hit by tragedy with a fatal accident involving one of the crews. The no.410 Toyota of Argentineans Amor Eduardo Osvaldo and Fenoglio Alejandro was involved in a road accident with a non-competing driver. The driver was taken to hospital but was later confirmed to have died.

Bikes: Despres Takes The Stage Win, But Coma Still In Control

Cyril Despres made up for his troubles yesterday by winning his third stage of the rally, 2m11 ahead of Marc Coma. However, the Spaniard still holds a commanding 15m59 lead over Despres in the general standings.

“To succeed, you have to try first, and I’m trying,” said Despres. “I’m doing everything I can, everything I know. It has to be said it was a superb special. Even if the time wasn’t great, it was a pleasure to ride. I’m still hoping and carrying on attacking. With Marc, we both ride KTM bikes, which is an advantage. We’re quite close, but for the moment, the fat lady hasn’t sung yet. There are still two days left.”

“Today was a great day,” said Coma. “It was a hard day, though, and very long with a lot of rocks and dry river beds. In the end, both parts were superb and we managed to ride at a good pace. There’s still tomorrow which will be a hard day, so anything is still possible.”

Despes won the stage, but Coma still has a 25 minutes lead overall

Francisco Lopez Contardo finished third on the stage, which is where he remains, comfortably, in the general standings. Amongst those to impress was American ‘rookie’ Quinn Alexis Coady, who finished sixth and likened today’s special to the Baja stages with which he is far more familiar.

“I felt really good on this special,” he said. “This terrain around here is exactly like on the Bajas, only way smoother. The terrain in the mountains was really similar to southern Bajas, so I feel comfortable. Every day, I’m getting more comfortable with the navigation and the road-book.”

Quads: Halpern tops Argentine 1-2-3, Patronelli crusing

It was a lockout of the top three positions on the special from Argentine riders with the rally now back in their territory. Sebastian Halpern took the stage victory, ahead of compatriots Thomas Maffei and Alejandro Patronelli. Patronelli is now easing himself to the category victory overall, with a 1h06m32 lead in the general standings.

However, it isn’t all comfortable for the runaway leader. “Thank God they shortened this stage by a hundred kilometres, otherwise it would’ve been very tough,” he said. “I hurt my hand and I’m having difficulty flexing my wrist. I struggled over the finishing line and I thank God that I was able to finish. I’m taking it easy, riding almost gently. I’m trying to finish and avoid any errors.”

Cars: Crisis for Sainz, Al-Attiyah closer to victory

Having got stuck in the dunes yesterday, Carlos Sainz truly said goodbye to his hopes of retaining the Dakar crown today. Pushing to make up lost time, the Spaniard was quickest when they reached the neutralised section. However, he hit a hole at the 410km point on the stage, ripping off his front right wheel. Teammate Mark Miller stopped to lend a hand in repairing the car, but over an hour was lost by the time he got going again.

Nasser Al-Attiyah was also pushing, under threat from Sainz, but kept out of trouble to win the stage by 1m13 from Stephane Peterhansel.

After problems for Sainz today Nasser Al-Attiyah has the longest lead of the rally in the car class

“Today we had a good start,” explained Al-Attiyah. “We just stayed behind “Peter”. Everything was okay, the car worked very well and there were no problems. There was a lot of dust on the stage, but the good thing is that we finished and we’ll see what we can do tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a different day as well. I don’t know what happened to Carlos. I hope he can fix his wheel. Today I think Carlos was pushing a lot.”

Al-Attiyah now leads in the general standings by 51m49 over Giniel de Villiers, who finished the stage in third. Sainz remains in third for now, ahead of Peterhansel.

Trucks: Another Victory For Chagin

Vladimir Chagin took his 62 career stage win in his Kamaz, beating Spain’s Pep Vila by 10m53. Chagin’s nearest challenger in the general standings, teammate and compatriot Firdaus Kabirov was third on the stage, 13m23 behind Chagin. Chagin now has an overall lead of 30m31 over Kabirov, with the third Kamaz of Eduard Nikolaev over two hours further back.

Ilgizar Mardeev took fourth overall, the Russian Kamaz crews now 1-2-3-4

2011 Dakar Rally Stage Eleven Results

Bikes:
1 Cyril Despres (KTM) in 4:33m13
2 Marc Coma (KTM) +0:02m11
3 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:06m19
4 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +0:07m44
5 Alain Duclos (Aprilia) +0:10m03

Quads:
1 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) in 5:35m30
2 Tomas Maffei (Yamaha) +0:01m52
3 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) +0:04m36
4 Lukasz Laskawiec (Yamaha) +0:09m28
5 Christophe Declerck (Polaris) +0:036m45

Cars:
1 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) in 4:17m27
2 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +0:01m13
3 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:04m52
4 Krzysztof Holoczyz (BMW) +0:013m17
5 Ricardo Leal dos Santos (BMW) +0:27m13

Trucks:
1 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) in 5:12m02
2 Pep Vila (Iveco) +0:11m04
3 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) +0:13m04
4 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +0:14m37
5 Hugo Duisters (Iveco) +0:17m30

Overall Standings After Stage Ten

Bike
1 Marc Coma (KTM) in 43:14m55
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:15m59
3 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:49m24
4 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +1:35m10
5 Juan Pedrero Garcia (KTM) +2:42m55

Quad
1 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) in 53:28m59
2 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +1:06m32
3 Christophe Declerck (Polaris) +6:30m00
4 Lukasz Laskawiec (Yamaha) +6:30m47
5 Pablo Copetti (Yamaha) +6:34m57

Car
1 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) in 38:16m01
2 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:51m49
3 Carlos Sainz (VW) +1:27m27
4 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +1:40m45
5 Krzystof Holowczyc (BMW) +4:02m54

Truck
1 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) in 44:08m40
2 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) +0:30m31
3 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +2:58m43
4 Ilgizar Mardeev (Kamaz) +5:34m06
5 Franz Echter (MAN) +5:38m07

As the 2011 Dakar Rally enters the home stretch the competitors re-enter Argentina. A long – 686km – road section brought the field back over the peaks of the Andes before a relatively short timed stage looped them south towards the overnight stop in Chilecito. With just a handful of stage remaining in the event the winners to be should be becoming clear. Should. However, most of the stages remain too close to call decided, despite the best efforts of the overall leaders to pull out a margin to take back to Buenos Aires.

Bikes: Rodrigues Lets It Slip Again, Coma Takes Hold

Portuguese Helder Rodrigues has had two days on the Dakar he’d rather forget. Leading the stage yesterday untillosing his way and running out of petrol the Yamaha rider was on form again today. Starting well down the order by virtue of his problems the day before Rodrigues was able to pick his way through some of more difficult navigation challenges on the stage, and was among the leaders until the last of the six split time waypoints on the stage.

Rodrigues held a lead of over two minutes on the stage at that point, and led until just ten kilometres from the finish line only finish 27 minutes behind in tenth.

“It was the same as yesterday!”“I started behind Marc and Cyril and I caught up with them. Afterwards, about ten kilometres from here, we got lost in a dry river bed and couldn’t find the way out. I lost a lot of time there. That’s two days in a row now.”

Rodrigues was not the only man to make navigational errors today. In a similar situation – a dry river bed – Cyril Despres got stuck on what he described as “a bad day”.

“I read 17 instead of 117 on the navigation and I ended up in the rocks with Verhoeven. We already lost lots of time there, but then in the last few kilometres I made another mistake, turned round and fell into a mud hole. It was impossible to get back out, it took me ten minutes in all.”

In total Despres lost 9m56 to stage winner Marc Coma – much of that due to the mistake in the final kilometres – more than doubling his overall deficit to the Spaniard who now enjoys an eighteen minute lead.

The remainder of the top five remains unchanged, though Francisco Lopez Contardo lost more time to the lead due after a fuel pump problem on the stage today.

Quads: Is Patronelli Unstoppable?

If you can make an argument for any of the four classes being settled, then it involves the quad category. Alejando Patronelli has made the class his own over the past few stages – as much because of others’ mistakes as his own pace.

He sits on a lead of over an hour overall in the most spread out of the leaderboards – the top five are split by nearly six hours. So, it is something of a surprise that the times on stage were the closest of the four categories today.

Patronelli finished the day sixth, though just five minutes down on stage winner Jorge Santamarina. The Honda pilto was just eight seconds faster than Sebastian Halpern, Lukasz Laskawiec third agter another good stage as he chases down fifth place overall, making up another minute on Christophe Declerck who finished fourth.

Cars: De Villiers’ Stage, Al-Attiyah’s Rally?

2009 champion Giniel de Villiers took his first stage win of the 2011 race, battling past Stephane Peterhansel and Nasser Al-Attiyah, who had swapped the stage lead all day. Peterhansel was another fall foul of a dry river bed, getting stuck though he only finished five minutes behind de Villiers and just 75 seconds behind Krzysztof Holowczyc who took a surprise second place.

“A great stage for the navigation,” said the Pole. “[Co-driver] Jean-Marc Fortin was perfect, without any single mistake. In some places it was very difficult to take the car uphill. On the bumps and the camel grass I felt very good. Second place is very nice for us. It’s possible for us to fight with the best drivers on this rally”.

“It wasn’t a very good day because we made a lot of mistakes,” Peterhansel described his stage. “We started calmly in the dunes but then we got lost, as well as getting stuck when we wanted to cut through a dry river bed. We jumped a wall, but fell on the front of the car, which stayed stuck, so we had to get out and dig ourselves free.”

The two BMWs relegated the battle for the overall lead to fourth and fifth, where Al-Attiyah struck what could be a decisive blow in the overall standings. While the Qatari lost the stage lead he still made up time on Sainz, the defending champion again found problems in the dunes, beaching his Touareg a top a one such feature just 13km into the stage.

The delay lost him nine minutes to the stage lead by the first waypoint and any comeback was thwarted by picking the wrong valley later on the stage, Sainz also adding a puncture and gearbox problems to his personal list of woes.

Al-Attiyah now holds 12 minute lead over Sainz, stage winning de Villiers 46 minutes behind – ready to pick up any scraps should the rivaly between the leaders end in tears – which given the ill-tempered exchanges on stage between two over the dune of Chile is always possible.

Trucks: Chagin Back On Top

Once more the Kamaz team exchanged the lead, Vladimir Chagin finishing the day 21 minutes ahead of Firdaus Kabirov, retaking the lead in the process.

After confusion yesterday, Ales Loprais was forced to retire from the rally with engine problems leaving the Russian squad to fight to the end of the rally among themselves. Chagin’s latest stage victory – adding to his considerable personal tally – equals a seventeen minute overall lead atop a Kamaz 1-2-3, leading Kabirov and Eduard Nikolaev.

There are heirs to Loprais’ ‘best challenger’ moniker. Marcel van Vliet took third fastest on the stage in his MAN with Pep Vila fourth ahead of Ilgizar Mardeev’s Kamaz.

2011 Dakar Rally Stage Ten Results

Bikes:
1 Marc Coma (KTM) in 3:06m35
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:09m56
3 Ruben Faria (KTM) +0:13m22
4 Miran Stanovnik (KTM) +0:21m26
5 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:21m43

Quads:
1 Jorge Santamarina (Honda) in 4:14m49
2 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:00m08
3 Lukasz Laskawiec (Yamaha) +0:03m03
4 Christophe Declerck (Polaris) +0:03m52
5 Josef Machacek (Yamaha) +0:04m10

Cars:
1 Giniel de Villiers (VW) in 2:53m15
2 Krzysztof Holowczyc (BMW) +0:04m23
3 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +0:05m38
4 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) +0:08m54
5 Carlos Sainz (VW) +0:18m13

Trucks:
1 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) in 3:21m39
2 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) +0:21m38
3 Marcel van Vliet (MAN) +0:34m37
4 Pep Vila (Iveco) +0:38m44
5 Ilgizar Mardeev (Kamaz) +0:39m55

Overall Standings After Stage Ten

Bike
1 Marc Coma (KTM) in 38:39m31
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:18m10
3 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:45m16
4 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +1:29m37
5 Ruben Faria (KTM) +1:34m42

Quad
1 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) in 47:48m53
2 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +1:11m08
3 Josef Machacek (Yamaha) +2:45m56
4 Sebastian Copetti (Yamaha) +5:47m20
5 Christophe Declerck (Polaris) +5:57m51

Car
1 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) in 33:58m34
2 Carlos Sainz (VW) +0:12m37
3 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:46m57
4 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +1:39m32
5 Mark Miller (VW) +3:40m43

Truck
1 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) in 38:56m38
2 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) +0:17m27
3 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +2:44m06
4 Franz Echter (MAN) +4:56m26
5 Ilgizar Mardeev (Kamaz) +5:06m10

On a map today’s loop to the north of Copiapo is an innocuous stage. However, the short 235km stage took the competitors through (across and over) some of the same sand dunes they took on yesterday. The same sand dunes that took some competitors over six hours to traverse yesterday and Alejandro Patronelli – the quad class winner – nearly eight hours.

Bikes: Streets Ahead

The day for the bikers began with a mass start, probably one of the iconic images of the Dakar, and the unusual beginning, and the dunes ahead formed the perfect recipe for a mixed up look to the stage standings.

Starting in the third wave – with 19 other riders and a lone quad pilot – was Jonah Street, and after two days of troubles in the dune filled stages of the Atacama the American ended today with his first stage victory of 2011 and the second of his career.

“Today we didn’t have any bike problems, everything went really smooth, so I’m happy,” Street said, contrasting with the previous stages. “It’s awesome. You know what? We’ve been capable of it all rally, it just hasn’t fallen into our plate. It’s awesome, totally awesome. It’s what we come here to do, to do the best we can and first is the best you can do, so to win a stage pretty special.”

“I had to start in the third wave, which was good and bad; good that everyone up front new their position and were taking it easy and I got to charge through. The second wave caught everybody in the second to last sand dunes. Then in the last dunes, I think when there were only 3 bikes in front of me I went over the handlebars hard, straight into the sand, totally unannounced, but I was okay.”

The timed waypoints throughout the stage showed Street had been on the pace all day – eventually taking the stage lead after 177km, the final leader on a stage first headed by Frans Verhoeven then Helder Rodrigues.

Helder Rodrigues look set of the stage win, until he ran out of fuel 15km from the finish

The pair finished the stage second and 33rd respectively, Rodrigues losing 27 minutes to Street in the final 15km of the stage after getting lost, then running out of fuel. Only help from a passing privateer got Rodrigues moving again.

Another man who had previously suffered in the dunes, David Casteu, finished third – a result he described as “absolutely great” – with Spaniard Gerard Farres Guell fourth on his Aprilia on a day when not a single KTM finished in the top five.

The lead group – containing the big names: Coma, Despres, ‘Chaleco’ – struck navigation problems, only regaining the route among the second wave of riders, who started four minutes behind them.

In the battle for the overall lead Cyril Despres took back a minute on Marc Coma – ending the stage with eight minutes still to regain on the overall leader. Both the lead par pulled away slightly from Lopez, who appears increasingly safe in third overall.

Marc Coma still leads overall, one of many to make navigation mistakes today

The surprise of the day, doubtless was Juan Carlos Salvatierra. The Bolivian, another to start in the third wave or riders, was among the leaders’ times early on in the stage. He finished the stage fourteenth fastest, a shadow of what appeared possible.

Quads: Patronelli – Homeward Bound?

The two nights spent in Copiapo mark an important turning point – literally – in the 2011 Dakar Rally. For the remainder of the rally the route brings the competitors back to Argentina, and on today’s performance it looks as through Alejandro Patronelli will return to his home country in the lead of the quad class.

The Yamaha rider came out on top of his stage long duel with Josef Machacek today, completing the timed part of the day five minutes faster than his Czech opponent – it was the furtest apart the pair’s times had been all stage.

But what really put Patronelli ahead was his advantage over Sebastian Halpern – 17 minutes today to boost his overall lead to over an hour. Machacek lies third overall, benefitting from Tomas Maffei’s horror show yesterday which left him 13 hours down at the start of today’s stage.

Third today – after another superb day in the desert – was Lukasz Laskawiec, the Pole perhaps the best performer in any of the classes throughout the Chilean stages of the rally.

Cars: Carlos Regains Some Time

After losing the lead yesterday Carlos Sainz returned to winning ways, taking the stage at the head of a now familiar list of VW Touaregs ahead of Nasser Al-Attiyah and Giniel de Villiers.

The result trimmed Al-Attiyah’s lead by nearly two minutes, the overall leader suffering a puncture on the stage. Sainz caught the Qatari on the stage, recouping the two minutes that separated them at the start of the stage, before Al-Attiyah repassed the Spaniard in the dunes, minimising the time lost. Al-Attiyah’s puncture meant the lead VWs were once again running close together, the pair bouncing across the desert in a manner you expect more of SCORE truck racing in America.

The undisputed king of punctures this year – Stephane Peterhansel – ended the day blessedly free of flat tyres. However, still in the lead BMW in the overall standings still finished eleven minutes down on the stage leader – further losing touch with the lead battle.

“I’m fairly happy, because we managed to fix the problem we had with the car and which was causing the engine to over-heat yesterday,” said Peterhansel. “The mechanics had to work until 6 o’clock this morning and today it worked just fine. I only lost 11 minutes to Sainz, due to a few small navigation errors. But out in front, there on a different level from us. They’ve got a very quick car and they’re maintaining an impressive pace.”

Stage nine also ended the rally for a pair of the more recognisable names of the class. Eliseo Salazar – Robby Gordon’s teammate in the Speed Energy Hummers – retired with gearbox problems while Tim Coronel – relatively flawless until now in his McRae buggy rolled his may out of the rally, via destroying the TW Steel emblazoned machine.

Trucks: Kabirov Re-takes The Lead, Kamaz Alone To Battle

Two way battles are a theme of the Dakar this year. Coma versus Despres, Sainz versus Al-Attiyah and now Firdaus Kabirov versus Vladimir Chagin.

The latest chapter in the Kamaz battle ended in a stage victory for Kabirov after a day spent chasing his illustrious team leader. The final 60km made the difference, Chagin letting a seven minute lead slip to finish the day seven minutes down.

Chagin and Kabirov are now joined by Eduard Nikolaev in a Kamaz 1-2-3 at the top of the overall standings after a day of engine troubles for Ales Loprais dropped him down to fourth overall.

With Ales Loprais delayed (or out altogether) it is left to the Kamaz teams to settle class honours

Loprais – winner of two stages and the only man who has looked capable to matching the Kamaz fleet – lost over an hour stopped at 110km into the stage. The total damage totally 2:48 by the end of the day, dropping the yellow Tatra to fourth overall, any dream of a surprise win gone. Indeed some reports suggest the problems mean the end of Loprais’ Dakar

2011 Dakar Rally Stage Nine Results:

Bikes:
1 Jonah Street (Yamaha) in 3:06m56
2 Frans Verhoeven (BMW) +0:03m38
3 David Casteu (Sherco) +0:03m40
4 Gerard Farres Guell (Aprilia) +0:04m30
5 Jordi Viladoms (Yamaha) +0:05m46

Quads:
1 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) in 3:43m27
2 Josef Machacek (Yamaha) +0:05m21
3 Lukasz Laskawiec (Yamaha) +0:10m15
4 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:17m51
5 Jorge Santamaria (Honda) +0:18m09

Cars:
1 Carlos Sainz (VW) in 2:14m39
2 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) +0:01m56
3 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:09m02
4 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +0:11m14
5 Mark Miller (VW) +0:14m52

Trucks:
1 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) in 2:45m21
2 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) +0:07m38
3 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +0:14m50
4 Pep Vila (Iveco) +0:28m30
5 Franz Echter (MAN) +0:29m15

Overall Standings After Stage Nine

Bike
1 Marc Coma (KTM) in 35:32m56
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:08m14
3 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:23m33
4 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +1:01m51
5 Ruben Faria (KTM) +1:21m20

Quad
1 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) in 43:28m41
2 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +1:16m23
3 Josef Machacek (Yamaha) +2:47m09
4 Sebastian Copetti (Yamaha) +5:42m37
5 Christophe Declerck (Polaris) +5:59m22

Car
1 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) in 30:56m25
2 Carlos Sainz (VW) +0:03.18
3 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:55m51
4 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +1:42m48
5 Mark Miller (VW) +2:45m19

Truck
1 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) in 35:30m48
2 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) +0:04m11
3 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +2:03m51
4 Ales Loprais (Tatra) +3:14m58
5 Franz Echter (MAN) +3:55m40

Stage eight saw a mix of winners. In some classes it was the predictable winner, a leader only extending their lead in the overall standings. In others it was the return to winning ways for past leaders, whose crowns have slipped in recent days and for Nasser Al-Attiyah it was the stage win that sees him lead the rally for the first time. For all, however, it was another day in the Chilean desert with another day of tricky navigation to make it through to be a day nearer to completing the Dakar. The difficulty inherent in the day illustrated by the fact that – at the time of writing – three-quarters of the 84 cars that began the stage are yet to finish.

Bikes: Coma Comes Back To Winning Ways

After a few stages of – by his normal standards – falling short of expectations Marc Coma returned to the top of the stage times, pulling back away from Cyril Despres – the Frenchman who had been gaining on the leader over the past few stages.

Despres finished the stage second, with ‘Chaleco’ Lopez third. The tough navigation on the stage led the trio to ride much of the stage together, as Lopez – who led the stage off the line – describes.

“I had to open the way on some sections,” explains ‘Chaleco’. “Cyril did it on other parts and in the end we rode well. All in all, it was a good day. We worked well together. It was difficult to win a stage like that, a 508-kilometre timed section. But we rode quickly and by staying with them like that I knew it would do me good in the general standings”.

The Aprilia rider finished the stage 4m21 down on Coma and is now 22 minutes in arrears overall, though well within striking distance of the lead with some of the treacherous dune filled stages still ahead of the competitors.

Fourth on the stage went to the man who is also fourth in the over standings – Helder Rodrigues – but fifth on the stage went to a man who only know seems to be getting to grips with the 2011 Dakar Rally. Struggling with his new, smaller, bike since the first stage of the rally Norwegian Pal Anders Ullevalseter has been improving quietly and today claimed his first top stage result of the rally.

“That was my kind of special. Until half-way through I was doing well, but then I got lost twice,” he said. “In the end, for the general standings, it was a good result and I’m continuing to climb back up. It’s very positive and I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s stage”.

Some were less fortunate on stage eight. After leading at the first of the tracking waypoints Paulo Goncalves fell after 55km, breaking his collar bone to end his rally. There was also another day of delays for Jonah Street due to mechanical problems. The American was able to get moving on the stage, though he lost another 1:27 to the leaders. The other leading American in the bike class enjoyed a much better day, Quinn Cody tenth today and eighth overall.

Quads: Patronelli Leads, Normal Service Resumed

After delays yesterday which lost him the overall lead, Alejandro Patronelli took another stage win – his fourth of the event – and left his rivals to have the problems. Tomas Maffei’s challenge fell away early on in the day, hemorrhaging time almost from the start to the stage to the extent that the electronic tracker has not yet counted him home at the end of the stage.

Alejandro Patronelli now holds a lead of nearly an hour among the quads

Problems also hit Sebastian Halpern, the leader at the start of the stage, with a loss over 30 minutes to Patronelli. With, again, many of the usual front runners it was a chance for others to make up ground on the top three. And again Pole Lukasz Laskawiec showed prowess when others were finding problems.

He led for much of the stage – taking over when Halpern’s problems took their toll and only lost out to Patronelli in the final third of the stage. Another good stage leaves him sixth overall, having gained nearly an hour on the overall lead after the last two stages.

Cars: Nice For Nasser, (More) Purgatory For Peter

Carlos Sainz has led the car class since the end of stage one, but for the first time this year the Spaniard will not sleep as leader thanks to Nasser Al-Attiyah’s slender stage win.

Though the Qatari only won the stage by 6m36 it was enough to overturn Sainz’s lead at the end of a sometimes heated stage between the teammates, Sainz believing Al-Attiyah made contact with him as the pair crossed the dunes in tandem.

“We were really careful from the beginning,” said Al-Attiyah. “Carlos caught up with us very quickly. In the last section of dunes we were pushing at a maximum because that was where we had to take the time from Sainz. I’m quite happy to win the stage, quite happy. It was a difficult stage because I was opening all the way, but the dunes are my favourite terrain and I was really pushing to the limit.”

Al-Attiyah took the lead in the dunes

Sainz in now presented with a new scenario, chasing the lead – and a confident Qatari – for the first time this year in the overall standings.

“I hope that today will have been our worst day on the Dakar,” Sainz said. “At the end we got stuck in the dunes twice and both times we had to get out and dig. Sometimes everything’s fine, other times it’s not as good. We’ll just have to keep on going. We need to attack.”

While it was problems for Sainz for the first time this year it was simply variations on a theme for Stephane Peterhansel.

“Just for a change, we got a puncture right at the start,” he said, surely with more than a little sarcasm given the struggles that came before. “But it was nothing compared to what happened afterwards. We had a problem with the engine over-heating.”

“We had to make a quick fix on the fan and stop regularly to add water to the radiator. Over the last 150 km we must have lost an hour and a half. We had three punctures as well today, so we’ve finished without a spare wheel. One more and it would’ve been curtains for us. Mind you, that would’ve just been a few minutes lost, instead of hours”.

The result almost surely ends his chances of overall victory – now with 1:33 to make up and three VW to pass, 2009 champ Giniel de Villiers taking advantage of Peterhansel’s delays to take third overall. Problems – first of an electrical nature, the power steering – also hit Krzysztof Holowczyc leaving the questionable honour of being the best non-VW to Nani Roma in his Nissan Pick-Up.

Trucks: Chagin Returns To The Top

Another man – like Coma – to have slipped from his pedestal on recent stages is Vladimir Chagin, and like Coma the Russian returned to winning stages today, taking his 60th career stage.

The Kamaz boys were back on top, Kabirov second to Chagin on stage

A huge swing – Chagin winning the stage by 31 minutes – had The Tsar back on top of the overall standings by 3m27 over Kamaz stablemate Firdaus Kabirov, but it was day to bring Ales Loprais back to earth with a bump.

After consecutive stage wins either side of Saturday’s rest day the Czech finished today fourth fastest, and is now nearly 30 minutes behind Chagin, still the only man stemming the Kamaz flow in third place overall.

2011 Dakar Rally Stage Eight Results:

Bikes:
1 Marc Coma (KTM) in 6:05m02
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:01m55
3 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:04m21
4 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +0:08m38
5 Pal Ander Ullevalseter (KTM) +0:25m03

Quads:
1 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) in 7:57m26
2 Josef Machacek (Yamaha) +0:08m02
3 Lukasz Laskawiec (Yamaha) +0:11m00
4 Jorge Santamaria (Honda) +0:32m51
5 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:34m50

Cars:
1 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) in 5:16m30
2 Carlos Sainz (VW) +0:06m36
3 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:17m22
4 Mark Miller (VW) +0:20m01
5 Nani Roma (Nissan) +0:51m51

Trucks:
1 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) in 6:01m12
2 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) +0:31m49
3 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +0:36m55
4 Ales Loprais (Tatra) +0:41m36
5 Ilgizar Mardeev (Kamaz) +1:28m00

Overall Standings After Stage Eight

Bike
1 Marc Coma (KTM) in 32:18m52
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:09m19
3 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:22m48
4 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +0:41m42
5 Ruben Faria (KTM) +1:09m59

Quad
1 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) in 39:45m14
2 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:58m32
3 Josef Machacek (Yamaha) +2:41m48
4 Sebastian Copetti (Yamaha) +4:47m30
5 Christophe Declerck (Polaris) +5:25m19

Car
1 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) in 28:39m50
2 Carlos Sainz (VW) +0:05m14
3 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:48m45
4 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +1:33m30
5 Mark Miller (VW) +2:32m23

Truck
1 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) in 32:42m00
2 Firdaus Kabirov (kamaz) +0:03m27
3 Ales Loprais (Tatra) +0:29m36
4 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +1:52m28
5 Franz Echter (MAN) +3:29m52

After a well earned day off the remaining drivers and riders – 125 bikes, 17 quads, 92 cars and 46 trucks – of the 2011 Dakar Rally returned to action today, and in a way they were eased back into action. Originally planned as a 631km stage, split by a neutralised section, Dakar organisers the ASO chose to cut the stage in half, ending at the beginning of the origin neutralised run. The motivation behind cutting the stage – which would have been the longest stage of the event – was to allow teams and drivers to be better prepared for the second half of the race. However, for some it was still a stage of troubles, and for one the rest day was not as relaxing as it should be.

Bikes: ‘Chaleco’ Wins On Home Soil

2011 is not Ruben Faria’s year. He lost a stage victory on day one to a one minute penalty, and after clocking the best time on stage six (before the rest day) the Portuguese thought he finally had a stage win. However, this time it was a four minute penalty that dropped him to third on the stage and left the honour of restarting the Dakar to Yamaha rider Helder Rodrigues.

Rodrigues would end the day fourth fastest – one place ahead of Faria in the same order they lay in the overall rankings.

However, the day belonged to the man third in the overall rankings. So much of the rally so far seems to have been spent waiting for Francisco ‘Chaleco’ Lopez to claim as stage, and today it came in his home nation. He dominated the stage, leading at all but one of the timing waypoints during the day, and though he lost time towards the end of the stage he still beat the time Cyril Despres by over two minutes.

Chilean Lopez took his first Dakar stage win of the 2011 event

“There was a lot of dust in the beginning,” said ‘Chaleco’. “I went a little faster afterwards but I lost my exhaust at mid stage more or less. So after that, I was afraid my engine would break. Fortunately, it was the shortest special stage since the beginning of the raid; if it had not been the engine would have been hit bad.”

Despres once more made up time on overall leader Marc Coma, claiming back another 1m24 today to move to just seven minutes behind – well within the ten minutes he lost after being given a penalty earlier in the rally.

Problems for American Jonah Street dropped him down the order

It was, however, a bad day for Jonah Street. After running well during the first week of the rally the American entered the stage seventh overall. However, reported engine problems halted his Yamaha after 149km, ending the stage 90 minutes in arrears to Lopez and dropping to 14th overall.

Quads: Problems For Patronelli Bunch The Field

The front runners in the quad class chose today to hit problems. Alejandro Patronelli – the class of the field to this point – was dogged by mechanical problems throughout the stage. In total he lost more than hour on the stage, and with it the overall lead.

The damage, luckily for Patronelli, was limited, thanks to problems for Tomas Maffei – his nearest challenger. A victim of troubles himself Maffei completed the stage 58 minutes behind stage winner Sebastian Halpern.Orlando Terranova – the front running South American, will not make a racing return to Argentina this year. He rolled his BMW X3 after 200km, and while there appear to have been no serious injuries – Chicherit was similarly largely unscathed – the accident was enough to put him out of the rally. The stage had again proved itself a worth challenge, even in its short form.

“In the last two stages, I did not ride as well as I would have wanted to,” he said. “And I had some bad luck too. But today, I was more careful, I used my head more and I had a bit of luck as wekk. All I do is think about my own race… for the rest, we will see.”

The result brings the overall standings – somewhat divergent before the rest day – back together again. Maffei begins the second week clutching to a slender three minute lead over Patronelli. His stage win – his first of the year – moved Halpern back to within half an hour of the lead.

Problems for some of the regular front runners gave some of the other runners in the class a run into the top five. Lukasz Laskowiec – who started the day tenth overall – led at the first way point of the day before ending the day a creditable second. Santiago Hansen also collected his first top five stage time of the event.

Cars: End Of The MINI Adventure Preludes X-Raid’s Bad Day

It was, again, a VW convoy at the head of the cars, Nasser Al-Attiyah taking a second stage win of the year to keep the pressure on de facto team leader Carlos Sainz.

However, it was the German X-Raid team who made the news for all the wrong reasons. Improbably the bad run of luck began on the rest day. After an impressive fightback, and an unexpectedly reliable car, Guerlain Chicherit had overcome an early set back in the Mini Countryman, and while other competitors spent the day, well, resting, Chicherit was doing demonstration runs for the cameras.

Guerlain Chicherit and the MINI Countryman - before the rest day

It was then it all went a bit wrong. Chicherit rolled the MINI, comprehensively destroying it, the Frenchman out of the rally in unusual circumstances.

Of the fleet of X-Raids that began the stage it was left to Stephane Peterhansel to lead the way. He was again, struck by punctures – another one to add to the four he endured on stage six – as he lost seven minutes – Sainz and Al-Attiyah beginning to turn the homeward leg to Buenos Aires into an internecine battle among the VWs.

“I don’t have the right speed to drive through this kind of rocky fesh fesh,” bemoaned Peterhansel. “Minutes add up and it’s getting pretty bad. It is my fault. I drive too fast on this terrain. I don’t have the right pace. Anyway, on the podium, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th or 8th, it’s all the same. The only thing we wanted at the start was final victory and that seems to be getting out of reach.”

Krzysztof Holowczyc finished the day fifth in his BMW – launching a challenge to Peterhansel’s puncture crown with two of his own today, the Pole wondering aloud at the end of the day if the BMW was simply too heavy for the tyres on the terrain. However,

Trucks: Allez Loprais!

After waiting four years to add another stage victory to his Dakar CV Ales Loprais only had to wait two days to claim a third.

The win put the Czech Tatra driver – and his co-driver Josef Kalina – second overall, overtaking Vladimir Chagin. The reigning champion again seemed to struggle to maintain the pace of the stage winner, dropping another 14 minutes to Loprais and nine minutes to Kamaz teammate and rival Firdaus Kabirov, who still holds a comfortable lead at the top of the overall standings.

Chagin in now 28 minutes adrift in the overall standings, a margin that likely needs problems for Loprais and/or Kabirov for him to successfully defend his class title.

Franz Echter and Eduard Nikolaev rounded out the top five, consolidating their overall positions.

2011 Dakar Rally Stage Seven Results

Bikes:
1 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) in 3:29m45
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:02m21
3 Marc Coma (KTM) +0:03m45
4 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +0:09m14
5 Ruben Faria (KTM) +0:10m44

Quads:
1 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) in 4:01m26
2 Lukasz Laskawiec (Yamaha) +0:02m10
3 Jorge Santamaria (Honda) +0:06m16
4 Josef Machacek (Yamaha) +0:08m42
5 Santiago Hansen (Polaris) +0:30m50

Cars:
1 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) in 2:40m57
2 Carlos Sainz (VW) +0:01m20
3 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:02m56
4 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +0:07m40
5 Krzysztof Holowczyc (BMW) +0:17m00

Trucks:
1 Ales Loprais (Tatra) in 2:23m43
2 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) +0:05m03
3 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) +0:14m05
4 Franz Echter (MAN) +0:19m53
5 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +0:22m40

Overall Standings After Stage Seven:

Bike
1 Marc Coma (KTM) in 26:13m50
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:07m24
3 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:18m27
4 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +0:33m04
5 Ruben Faria (KTM) +0:40m53

Quad
1 Tomas Maffei (Yamaha) in 31:44m45
2 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) +0:03m03
3 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:26m45
4 Josef Machacek (Yamaha) +2:36m49
5 Sebastian Copetti (Yamaha) +3:23m54

Car
1 Carlos Sainz (VW) in 23:21m58
2 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) +0:01m22
3 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +0:21m11
4 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:32m45
5 Krzysztof Holowczyc (BMW) +1:28m59

Truck
1 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) in 26:12m26
2 Ales Loprais (Tatra) +0:16m22
3 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) +0:28m22
4 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +1:43m55
5 Franz Echter (MAN) +2:25m47

Today’s sixth stage brought the Dakar to Arica – the most northerly point on this year’s route, just a stone’s throw from Chile’s border with Peru. But for all the stage explored new territory for the rally, it was an old fashioned Dakar test, the dunes of the Atacama Desert standing between the remaining competitors and a well earned rest day tomorrow.

Bikes: Faria Bags A Keeper, Despres’ Squeeky-Bum Time

Ruben Faria so nearly began this year’s Dakar in the best possible way, looking like he was won Sunday’s first stage until a one minute penalty was applied. However, making the best of starting seventh on the stage, the Portuguese finished the stage 50 seconds ahead of his compatriot Helder Rodrigues.

“It was a very tough stage, very long and bumpy,” assessed Faria. “I started at my own pace, so until the refuelling stop I probably lost some time. After that I accelerated. 200 km from the finish, I overtook Despres, Coma, Rodrigues and Chaleco. I stayed with them, so I think I should have won.”

The stage win saw Faria climb back into the top five at the expense of Paulo Goncalves. The pair of KTMs battling for the lead finished the day third and fourth, Cyril Despres clawing back 90 seconds of his deficit to Marc Coma after a difficult stage of both.

“After the refuelling point, the bike started to vibrate and I didn’t know whether to stop or not, in case the engine was going to blow,” said Despres. “I slowed down a bit and in the end I finished at the same time as the others. Honestly, it’s a miracle that I finished. The only positive thing is that I’m here, but it was squeaky-bum time for 200 km and that’s not reassuring”.

Marc Coma holds an eight minute lead going into the rest day

“It was a very hard stage, at the start with the dunes, then with all the navigation, because it was very technical until around the 200 km point,” Coma gives his own opinion. “It was a very restrictive stage and was hard to open the way. It was like I was stood still and was still in the same place since there was so much ‘fesh-fesh’ [soft sand]. It was a really hard stage”.

“The rest day will do the machine and rider a world of good,” Despres added, speaking, you have to believe for every Dakar competitor who makes it to Arica.

Quads: Patronelli Leads To The Rest Day

Alejandro Patronelli will spend the rest day standing proud at the top of the quad class with a 16 minute lead over Tomas Maffei. Today Patronelli scored his third stage win, besting Maffei by 15 minutes.

“Very tough, imposing,” Patronelli summed up the stage. “All sorts of things happened to me today. I fell, but I didn’t damage the quad. I’m not injured. To tell the truth, I was lucky. Despite all the dust, I was dazzled by a bit of sunlight and I didn’t see a signpost. I’m going to get a penalty for speeding, I’m sure of it, but that’s not important, I’m still here after all. After that, I rode as quick as I could to make up for the penalty. My motivation is to finish and arrive in Buenos Aires to celebrate on the podium with the crowds. On this Dakar we have been really unlucky. I’d never fallen before and now it’s happened twice. The general standings aren’t an important objective, because I could have hurt myself badly today”.

The Argentine pair now hold a gargantuan 1:48 lead over Sebastian Halpern – another Argentine, with another Sebastian – Copetti – rounding out an Argentine 1-2-3-4 at the top of the overall standings. The domination comes after Czech rider Martin Plechaty, fell out of fourth place. At the time writing he is still on stage according to the tracker on the Dakar website.

Josef Machacek took third on the stage – a distant 48 minutes behind Patronelli, Jorge Santamaria and Christophe Declerck ended the stage fourth and fifth best.

Cars: Four For Sainz, Four For Peterhansel

Carlos Sainz, to date, has dominated the 2011 Dakar Rally, and will spend the rest day in Arica at top the class standings after scoring a fourth stage of the rally on just the sixth stage of the event.

The defending champion ran the special stage just nine seconds faster than Volkswagen teammate Nasser Al-Attiyah. It was a day of domination of the only factory squad, Giniel de Villiers and Mark Miller making sure the Red Bull backed cars took the top four spots on the stage.

Reigning champ Sainz lead a day of VW domination

Fifth was Stephane Peterhansel. He had led the stage at mid point – leading Al-Attiyah by 35 seconds after 261km. However, a string of four punctures put an end to the BMW driver’s challenge for stage victory and saw him drop 12 minutes behind Sainz by the time Peterhansel limped over the line – the last flat tyre a millstone around his neck for the closing kilometres.

“We missed one of the Way Points when we were crossing some dunes,” Peterhansel described. “We had to turn back and lost 4 to 5 minutes there. After that, we had a series of punctures, four times in all. We only had three spare wheels, so we had to stop regularly to inflate that last wheel.”

Krzysztof Holowczyc finished the stage sixth fastest, enough to keep his fifth place overall ahead of Mark Miller, the American having clawed back the time he lost on stage two after an accident.

“It was a very good stage for us today,” said the stage winner. “We caught up with Peter[hansel] and Nasser, who were driving together, then I saw Peterhansel stop. I was in Nasser’s dust, very close by. I also got a puncture and lost several minutes… I don’t like this kind of stage. They are difficult and dangerous. It’s very close in the standings. At the rest day, the gaps are very small: 2’30”; that’s nothing”.

Trucks: One For Loprais!

After spending the opening week of the rally battling to keep pace with one Kamaz rig or another this stage finally saw Czech Tatra driver Ales Loprais put his name on a stage win.

It was Loprais’ second career Dakar stage win – the other coming back in Africa in 2007 – and proved the Kamaz’s were not unstoppable. Indeed, given that the Russians Firdaus Kabirov and Vladimir Chagin, it is a credit to Loprais that his stage win puts him two minutes out of second place held by Chagin.

Ales Loprais' Tatra held of an "army" of Kamaz drivers

“The Kamaz drivers are so strong, with excellent technique and they are excellent drivers as well,” said Loprais. “But we will push. We are just one Tatra here against an army of trucks from Russia, but we will keep on pushing, that’s our goal and we would like to target the podium at least.”

“For sure it’s fantastic to win a special and it’s a great satisfaction for us. It was a really difficult stage. Even the first section in the dunes there was a lot of possibilities of getting a puncture. We were really organised to not get a flat tyre because in the last stage it happened and that cost us 20 minutes.”

‘The Tsar’ – the record holder for stage wins – could only muster third best today though he led the stage at several points, losing further time to Firdaus Kabirov who has a 19 minute lead over his teammate.

Eduard Nikolaev and Ilgizar Mardeev finished the stage fourth and fifth to put all four Kamaz units in the top five – a quick reminder to Ales Loprais about what he’s up against.

2011 Dakar Rally Stage Six Results:

Bike:
1 Ruben Faria (KTM) in 5:35m27
2 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +0:00m50
3 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:03m54
4 Marc Coma (KTM) +0:05m20
5 Stefan Svitko (KTM) +0:08m07

Quads:
1 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) in 6:41m33
2 Tomas Maffei (Yamaha) +0:15m04
3 Tomas Machacek (Yamaha) +0:48m01
4 Jorge Santamaria (Honda) +0:57m17
5 Christophe Declerck (Polaris) +1:00m12

Cars:
1 Carlos Sainz (VW) in 4:43m53
2 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) +0:00m09
3 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:09m49
4 Mark Miller (VW) +0:09m50
5 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +0:12m25

Trucks:
1 Ales Loprais (Tatra) in 6:00m37
2 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) +0:03m55
3 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) +0:09m39
4 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +0:27m03
5 Ilgizar Mardeev (Kamaz) +0:54m49

Overall Standings After Stage Six

Bike:
1 Marc Coma (KTM) in 22:40m20
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:08m48
3 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:22m12
4 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +0:27m35
5 Ruben Faria (KTM) +0:29m54

Quad:
1 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) in 26:21m57
2 Tomas Maffei (Yamaha) +0:16m31
3 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +1:48m17
4 Sebastian Copetti (Yamaha) +4:05m12
5 Christophe Declerck (Polaris) +4:51m14

Car:
1 Carlos Sainz (VW) in 20:39m41
2 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) +0:02m42
3 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +0:14m51
4 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:31m09
5 Krzysztof Holowczyc (BMW) +1:13m19

Truck:
1 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) in 23:43m40
2 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) +0:19m20
3 Ales Loprais (Tatra) +0:21m25
4 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +1:26m18
5 Franz Echter (MAN) +2:10m57

After crossing the Andes yesterday today’s run to Iquique took the 2011 Dakar almost to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Today saw almost the exact opposite of yesterday’s stage – a short connection before a much longer stage, and dunes made their first real appearance of 2011. However, while moves were made on the stage, decisions taken overnight by the organisers also had repercussions upon the standings. This stage has become one of the highlights of the South American Dakar, ending with a breath-taking 3 in 10 decent into Iquique.

Bikes: Pain, Penalty And A Portuguese Person

At the end of the day it was Portuguese Paulo Goncalves who was handed the stage win – his first Dakar stage win. However, initially it was ‘Chaleco’ Lopez who was given the stage win, and the Chilean a popular winner in his home country, but then organisers took into account Olivier Pain.

The Frenchman, who finished yesterday’s stage fourth, and was leading the stage today at some of the early waypoints, had fallen – and was knocked unconscious and with a broken wrist – but was helped by riders who came upon his downed Yamaha. First Marc Coma, starting the stage as overall leader, then Goncalves, Coma setting off Pain’s emergency beacon before he was helicoptered away.

“After the refuelling point, I stopped to help Olivier Pain who had fallen,” Goncalves said, before knowing he had won the stage. “The rules say we should stop. I waited for 4 to 5 minutes. The main thing is that he’s ok.”

After the stage officials looked at the GPS records of both Coma and Goncalves, giving them back the time lost in assisting Pain – as stated in the rules. The recouped time put Goncalves over two minutes ahead of Lopez, Coma claiming fourth best on stage behind Frans Verhoeven at the end of an eventful stage which also saw him fall early in stage, damaging his radiator, delaying for the rest of the day.

Coma had been given another present overnight, overall rival Cyril Despres being given a ten minute penalty after an offence in the start zone of yesterday’s stage.

“I was told at half past four in the morning that I’d been given a penalty,” Despres explains. “I just forgot my thermal gloves, so I went back to get them and I didn’t see that there were signposts I had to follow at the exit.”

Despres also summed up the navigation challenge in the stage, as the Rally moves increasingly away from tracks and onto the open plains describing the search for the GPS waypoints as “like needles in haystacks.”

One of many to lose time sifting the haystack was David Casteu, the Sherco rider losing five hours today, and with any hope of a good result having started the day in the top ten overall.

Quads: Another Success For Patronelli

While Alejandro Patronelli was able to take his second stage win of the year, the lead battle has been – at least for the time – trimmed from three Argentines to just two after Sebastian Halpern lost over 40 minutes on the stage – finishing the day sixth fastest.

“It was really tough, very tiring – exhausting, in fact,” Patronelli admitted. “But that’s the Dakar and you have to fight to withstand the demands of the race. Tomas Maffei is doing well, which is normal, because he’s talented. He demonstrated that during the endurance race at Verano. I hope an Argentinean rider will win. I’m going to keep going at my pace and just hoping to finish”.

The stage sees Halpern drop back from Patronelli and Tomas Maffei who were again the class of the quad class. Czech Josef Machacek was initially given the third fastest stage time, before a four hour penalty was applied, sending him plummeting down the order, while Jorge Santamaria, who recorded the fifth fastest time on his Honda was given a six hour penalty.

Those penalties lifted Martin Plechaty to third fastest, followed by Sebastian Halpern and Christophe Declerck, the latter’s Polaris lending some diversity to the Yamaha dominated Quad class leaderboard.

Cars: Peterhansel Claims BMW’s First Stage

Bizarrely, a stage five report for the cars must start with the events of stage four.

Though official sources listed Robby Gordon as an abandonment after a broken wheel bearing on the marathon connecting stage, the Hummer driver went on to complete yesterday’s stage – then worry about pleading his case to continue on the rally.

It was predictably a case Gordon was never likely to win, putting a sad post-script on a disastrous rally for the American.

But today was BMWs day, the X-Raid Team scoring their first win of the Rally thanks to Stephane Peterhansel. The Frenchman led much of stage the advantage swaying wildly from nearly four minutes to just a matter of seconds over the chasing Carlos Sainz and Nasser Al-Attiyah. The stage ended, recording a stage win by 1m24 over the Qatari, with Sainz nearly two minutes further back cutting his overall lead to just 2m26, Peterhansel now his nearest challenger.

Though Peterhansel and BMW won the battle, it may have been VW who won the war of the stage, the quartet of Touaregs annexing the remainder of the top five as much of the rest of the X-Raid ranks struck trouble.

Guerlain Chicherit ran well early on, putting the MINI among the three fastest cars at the 83km waypoint on the stage. He was soon, however, stuck the car nosed into a ditch, its rear wheels uselessly in the air. So, his teammates tried to come to his aid.

Peterhansel stopped briefly before Krzysztof Holowczyc tried to pull the MINI onto solid ground. He was unsuccessful, Holowczyc’s tow-line snapping in the process. The Pole would finish the day sixth fastest, enough to keep his top five overall standings despite being another to suffer with navigation troubles, estimating ten minutes lost in the final 30km of the day.

Chicherit’s eventual rescuer was Ricardo Leal Dos Santos – very much the forgotten man of the X-Raid stable – The MINI ending the stage tenth fastest, 52 minutes the total loss.

Worse was to befall Leonid Novitskiy. The Russian’s BMW hit a rock on the stage, the shock transferring up the steering, breaking his wrist, co-driver Andreas Schulz driving the car into the Iquique bivouac. His rally, over.

Trucks: Problems For Chagin, Kabirov Capitalises

It was another day of chasing the Kamaz for the truck runners as Vladimir Chagin and Firdaus Kabirov swapped the lead back and forth through much the stage, seemingly in their own private battle comfortably clear of Ales Loprais and Franz Echter – leading the efforts of Tatra and MAN respectively against the Kamaz juggernaut.

However, the latter part of the stage saw something of a Dakar rarity – a Kamaz with a mechanical problem – and it was Chagin, slipping back to fourth fastest on the stage, 22 minutes behind stage winner Kabirov.

Kamaz’s junior driver Eduard Nikolaev took an impressive second on the stage, Loprais third keeping him 25 minutes behind the overall leader Kabirov, Chagin now 13 minutes in arrears in second after his problems today.

2011 Dakar Rally Stage Five Results:

Bike:
1 Paulo Goncalves (BMW) in 5:12m23
2 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:02m18
3 Frans Verhoeven (BMW) +0:02m19
4 Marc Coma (KTM) +0:03m58
5 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:04m10

Quad:
1 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) in 6:04m34
2 Tomas Maffei (Yamaha) +0:03m21
3 Martin Plechaty (Yamaha) +0:36m02
4 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:41m38
5 Christophe Declerck (Polaris) +1:03m36

Car:
1 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) in 4:33m19
2 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) +0:01m24
3 Carlos Sainz (VW) +0:03m15
4 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:05m21
5 Mark Miller (VW) +0:20m42

Truck:
1 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) in 5:41m11
2 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +0:20m05
3 Ales Loprais (Tatra) +0:21m25
4 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) +0:22m17
5 Franz Echter (MAN) +0:25m48

Overall Standings After Stage Five

Bike:
1 Marc Coma (KTM) in 16:59m33
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:10m14
3 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:18m32
4 Paulo Goncalves (BMW) +0:21m42
5 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +0:32m05

Quad:
1 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) in 19:40m24
2 Tomas Maffei (Yamaha) +0:01m27
3 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:42m55
4 Martin Plechaty (Yamaha) +1:01m51
5 Sebastian Copetti (Yamaha) +2:39m36

Car:
1 Carlos Sainz (VW) in 15:45m48
2 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +0:02m26
3 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) +0:02m33
4 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:21m20
5 Krzysztof Holowczyc (BMW) +0:47m53

Truck:
1 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) in 17:39m08
2 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) +0:13m36
3 Ales Loprais (Tatra) +0:25m20
4 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +1:03m10
5 Franz Echter (MAN) +1:03m15

After a marathon stage yesterday – which claimed more than its fair share of racers – stage four was only a short blast – and the first when all four classes ran on the same route. The stage – run close to Calama, the day’s destination – perhaps paled in comparison to the 554km road connection before the timed portion. The road, peaking at 5,800m above sea level saw the competitos cross the Andes and enter Chile, and spelt the end of at least one 2011 Dakar.

Bikes: Coma, By Seconds

Spaniard Marc Coma took his second consecutive stage win, and though he finished the stage just 16 seconds ahead of rival Cyril Despres it was enough to see one KTM rider replace the other at the top of the overall standings, Coma’s lead just two seconds.

“It was a very important day for me, even if it was only a 207-km stage,” said Coma. “It was difficult to open the way. I’m happy and I felt great. I hope it stays like that right until the end. The general standings don’t matter for the moment. The most important thing will be the last day. It’s essential to have a good pace and avoid making mistakes. Now we’ll have to deal with two very difficult stages”.

Ruben Faria, in the early stages, held his familiar place behind the leading duo, before falling back for the second half of the stage, ultimately losing 17 minutes to the leaders and with it his place in the top five overall, as he dropped to seventh, 27 minutes behind new pace setter Coma.

His place (third) was taken by Francisco Lopez Contardo, who took third on both the stage and overall, though at 20 minutes behind the leading pair the class already seems to be a private battle between Coma and Despres.

“Cyril and Marc are riding at a crazy pace,” remarked ‘Chaleco’. “I can’t keep up with them for the moment. I prefer the stages with more off-track riding. Today was a positive day. I’m going to dry and claw time back on Coma and Despres but it’s not easy. They have machines that are performing excellently and they’re great riders as well.”

Despite having a poor day himself, Paulo Goncalves held onto to fourth overall, his fellow Portuguese Helder Rodrigues moving into fifth overall.

Quads: Chile, But Still All Argentina

There was news for the Argentinian quad cohort of both the positive and negative variety.

Firstly, the negative.

After struggling on the first three stages defending champion Marcos Partonelli crashed on the stage, injuring his knee, prompting his withdrawal from the rally. He was – as is standard practice for any injured driver – flown to the overnight campsite. However, he plans to continue the rally as part of the support team, following the progress of his brother Alejandro – and therein lies the positive.

He, had much the better day of the brothers (though that’s not particularly tricky) as part of a trifecta of Argentine riders once more at the top of the stage times.

Leading them, again, was Tomas Maffei – adding another stage win to his success yesterday. Starting the day 1m12 off the overall lead in third place his winning margin of nearly three minutes was enough to put him in a lead very few would have expected at the end of the day. Patronelli finished the day second with erstwhile leader Sebastian Halpern in third.

The fading Czech challenge again claimed fourth and fifth on the stage, stage one winner Josef Machacek ahead of Martin Plechaty. The latter – conversely the best of the pair overall – is now 27 minutes behind Maffei in the overall standings.

Cars: Sainz Success, Hummer Heartbreak

The dizzying pace among the race leading diesels aside the big news of day four of the Dakar took place before the stage had even technically started.

After 514km of the road link Robby Gordon was forced to stop. Outside of the stage – where official attention is understandably concentrated it was initially uncertain why. A blown engine was the initial report, as well as suspension problems, but both turned out to be incorrect. In the end it was a broken wheel bearing and despite the efforts by Gordon and co-driver Kellon Walch a quick fix proved impossible.

By the time the American’s support team were able to reach him the start of the day’s timed stage had already closed, so a frustrating Dakar for Gordon comes to a unsatisfactory – and early – end.

At the front it was Carlos Sainz who expended his overall lead after coming out on top of the now familiar VW versus BMW battle. Though after a delay strewn stage two admitting to driving a support role it was Mark Miller who led at the first of the day’s waypoints – Stephane Peterhansel and Carlos Sainz reaching the 28km with exactly the same time – two seconds behind Miller.

Peterhansel was the next to lead – the short stage meaning times were close as he, Sainz, Miller, Nasser Al-Attiyah, Giniel de Villiers and Guerlain Chicherit all reached the second waypoint within 34 seconds of each other.

146km saw Peterhansel appearing destined for his first stage win of the year, extending his lead to 55 seconds. However, a late surge by both Sainz and Al-Attiyah saw them both quicker than Peterhansel by stage’s end, both extending their advantage over the Frenchman in the overall standings.

“It could’ve been a good day because we were in the lead at the intermediate points. But we got a flat tyre and had to change the wheel, which took two or three minutes,” Peterhansel reveals the travails behind the delay that cost him the stage. “That’s what we needed to win the stage. It means that we’re navigating well and that we aren’t having problems on high altitude tracks either. So, even if it wasn’t our strategy to be third for tomorrow, it hasn’t turned out to bad in the end.”

The remaining Volkswagens of Giniel de Villiers and Mark Miller rounded out the top five, Miller breaking into the top ten for the first time following his stage two crash. Chicherit – another fighting back from an early setback – finished seventh fastest on the day’s stage in the MINI – actually running impressively given its lack of development running.

“It was cool,” said Chicherit. “We drove a great special with no mistakes. We didn’t push that hard and we really enjoyed the driving. During the last three stages we had problems with the brakes and I was hoping they would work today, and fortunately that was the case. Today, we weren’t concerned about the time. We just wanted to drive and get back into the rhythm without worrying about the rest.”

Trucks: Chagin Increases His Lead

The truck stage fitted a familiar pattern.

Kamaz domination, Ales Loprais’ lone Tatra bearing witness to the formidable pace of the Red Bull sponsored Russian team.

Vladimir Chagin, Firdaus Kabirov and Loprais – in that order – held the top three positions for the duration of the stage with Franz Echter and Eduard Nikolaev – the junior man in the four crew Kamaz outfit – in fourth and fifth.

With all five finishing the day in the order they started the overall standings, needless to say, remained the same the days seeing all the stage winners end the day as overall leaders.

2011 Dakar Rally Stage Four Results

Bike
1 Marc Coma (KTM) in 2:04m00
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:00m16
3 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:02m05
4 Olivier Pain (Yamaha) +0:06m20
5 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +0:06m55

Quad
1 Tomas Maffei (Yamaha) in 2:30m23
2 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) +0:02m54
3 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:04m23
4 Josef Machacek (Yamaha) +0:09m28
5 Martin Plechaty (Yamaha) +0:09m47

Car
1 Carlos Sainz (VW) in 1:57m09
2 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) +0:00m50
3 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +0:01m22
4 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:02m17
5 Mark Miller (VW) +0:02m43

Truck
1 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) in 2:10m18
2 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) +0:02m18
3 Ales Loprais (Tatra) +0:05m59
4 Franz Echter (MAN) +0:11m08
5 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +0:12m48

Overall Standings After Stage Four

Bike
1 Marc Coma (KTM) in 11:43m12
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:00m02
3 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:20m12
4 Paul Goncalves (BMW) +0:25m40
5 Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) +0:26m02

Quad
1 Tomas Maffei (Yamaha) in 13:33m56
2 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) +0:01m54
3 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:03m11
4 Martin Plechaty (Yamaha) +0:27m43
5 Josef Machacek (Yamaha) +0:30m48

Car
1 Carlos Sainz (VW) in 11:09m14
2 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) +0:04m24
3 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +0:05m41
4 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:19m14
5 Krzysztof Holowczyc (BMW) +0:27m45

Truck
1 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) in 11:49m16
2 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) +0:08m41
3 Ales Loprais (Tatra) +0:12m36
4 Franz Echter (MAN) +0:46m08
5 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +0:51m46

Another day heading to the north meant the longest stage of the Dakar so far for some, though the stage for the car, bike and quad runners was split by a neutralised part run on public roads. For the trucks, a shorter stage brought the race back to normal with a familiar name at the top of stage times.

Bikes: Despres And Coma – Battle Joined?

Jonah Street was the master of the bikes in the early running, the American and his Yamaha besting the big names of the Dakar at the day’s first split time before slipping back – but only into the top five – by the time the field reached 72km.

However, the mid point saw Street slip further back, losing over five minutes in just a handful of kilometres before the neutralisation. His misfortune allowed Spaniard Marc Coma to take his first stage win of the year, but the story of the day was Cyril Despres.

Running first on the road the reigning champion lost over six minutes in the opening section of the stage, clocking only the 45th fastest time, but from then on the fightback was unstoppable. As the stage lead slipped first from Street, then Paulo Goncalves to fall into Coma’s lap Despres made up half of his early deficit to climb to just fourth fastest at the 219km point of the day’s running. Once the bikes had travelled the 170km neutral section – competitors are not allowed to speed, but break downs and delays can still cost places – and begun the 102km ‘sprint’ to the line Despres was on the pace again, clawing back time on Coma to finish just 2m21 behind – and with the second fastest time.

“Marc Coma caught up with me very quickly,” Despres said. “There were a lot of riders at the start of the special. I was very careful during the first 10 kilometres and then after 11 km I got it completely wrong. I didn’t lose two hours, but several precious minutes. In the end, I limited the damage, because I finished 20 seconds behind Marc. He must have gain 2 minutes 20 seconds on me. It’s not huge amount of time, but I would’ve liked to have kept it for myself”.

The Frenchman’s endeavour was well rewarded, holding onto his overall lead, though Coma has moved to just 14 seconds behinds.

Ruben Faria maintained an ever increasingly distant third – a fifth best time today, keeping up his good run of form. Goncalves was third fastest, while sixth on stage was good enough to life Brazilian Jose Helio Rodrigues Filho into the overall top five for the first time. His improvement was at the expense of ‘Chaleco’ Lopez who finished the stage 13 minutes down on Coma, after mechanical problems.

“I started at a good pace, but then I had a problem with the fuel intake. I had to stop, repair and lost around ten minutes. After that, I rode at a gentler pace. I knew it would be a difficult day, but I’m still here. I hope that things will change once we get to Chile and I’m at home”.

Quads: Home Win!

Tomas Maffei was the surprise winner of a quad class which today was dominated by Argentine riders. Alejandro Patronelli made the early running, swapping the lead with Sebastien Halpern, while Czech pair Martin Plechaty and Josef Machacek could only look on.

The stage also seemed to be the one to confirme Marcos Patronelli’s return to form. The 2010 champion – still recovering from a serious injury sustained a few months ago – had been planning to run simply in support of his brother rather than to defend his title. However, when the No.250 quad was second quickest to the beginning of the neutral part of the stage, every part of that plan appeared to have disappeared from his mind.

However, Marcos lost 54 minutes in the final part of the stage, tumbling down the order to finish the day nearly an hour down on Maffei.

Sebastien Halpern claimed the second fastest time of the day ahead of Alejandro Patronelli as all three moved ahead of Machacek at the top of the overall standings, the trio covered by little over a minute and now a full 19 minutes ahead of Plechaty – fourth, and the best non-Argentine.

Halpern’s advantage is just 12 seconds over Patronelli, with Maffei a further minute behind – the exact time he was penalised after stage one.

Cars: Still A VW, But A Different VW

After two wins for Carlos Sainz, it was Nasser Al-Attiyah who won the car class, taking second in the standings to give VW a 1-2 on the overall standings.

Sainz, the first car on the road, never recovered from the time lost in the early stages and it was Stephane Peterhansel – the man who Al-Attiyah would end the day replacing in second – who made the early running before being passed, first after 113km, then 179km to the leading VWs. The three finished the stage, their times separated by just 59 seconds.

However, the stage victory still left the Qatari unhappy at the way the day had gone; “I’m very disappointed,” he said. “We had exactly the same problem as yesterday. We completely lost power after 200 km. I don’t know why. That’s three days the same thing has happened. I gained 1 minute 30 on Carlos in the first part, but I lost my lead on the technical section where you must always use 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear. We must fix the problem. I don’t care about our time or the special stage victory. Tomorrow there will be dunes and soft sand and that will be a problem”.

5m30 adrift of Al-Attiyah’s pace was Pole Krzysztof Holowczyc, but the fourth fastest time was enough to conform him in fifth place overall, chasing Giniel de Villiers in the third of the VW Touareg 3 machines.

For the fourth of the Red Bull sponsored cars – in the hands of Mark Miller – it was the first day of damage limitation and driving, realistically, as a support man for his teammates. After the team worked into the early morning Miller started well down the order but was undeterred, running back on the pace of his teammates. The American finished the stage sixth fastest after spending nearly the whole day passing the slower cars he started amongst. Robby Gordon shed another 25 minutes to the leaders in his Speed Energy backed Hummer, increasingly pinning his hopes to the stages in Chile.

Guerlain Chicherit, who was delayed on day one, spent another trouble free day at the wheel of the MINI, ninth fastest overall. BMW and VW – unsurprisingly – dominate the top of the leader board, Brazilian Guilherme Spinelli the best man in a non-German car, eighth fastest in his Mitsubishi.

The long stage for the cars will mean that many of the 135 cars who started the day will be finishing their 500km well into the evening.

Trucks: Chagin’s 58th and 1st

Running a significantly shorter stage than the other classes, their timed section ending before the neutral part of the other races, the Trucks had an easier day of it, and after a lowly – by his standards – fifth place yesterday it was Vladimir Chagin who claimed his 58th career Dakar stage win, and moved into a clear lead at the top of the overall standings.

Chagin and the rest of the Kamaz team were on fine form – the foursome of The Tsar, Firdaus Kabirov, Eduard Nikolaev and Ilgizar Mardeev all congregating at the top of the stages time. The man (or Tatra) tasked with fighting back against the domination of Ales Loprais, who kept pace with the Russian crews all day, only missing out on the second fastest time by five seconds to Kabirov.

The pair were, however, soundly beaten by Chagin who was nearly seven minutes ahead of his teammate. The advantage was more than enough to let Chagin retake the overall lead, converting most of his stage win into an overall lead which sits at 6m23 over Kabirov – the ever present Loprais just 15 seconds further back.

2011 Dakar Rally Stage Three Results:

Bike:
1 Marc Coma (KTM) in 4:18m55
2 Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:02m21
3 Paulo Goncalve (BMW) +0:03m36
4 Olivier Pain (Yamaha) +0:04m34
5 Ruben Fario (KTM) +0:05m46

Quad:
1 Tomas Maffei (Yamaha) in 4:58m04
2 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:01m27
3 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) +0:04m23
4 Martin Plechaty (Yamaha) +0:20m34
5 Josef Machacek (Yamaha) +0:20m44

Car:
1 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) in 3:42m20
2 Carlos Sainz (VW) +0:00m25
3 Stephane Paterhansel (BMW) +0:00m59
4 Krzysztof Holowczyc (BMW) +0:05m30
5 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:05m53

Truck:
1 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) in 2:57m36
2 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) +0:06m45
3 Ales Loprais (Tatra) +0:06m50
4 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +0:16m37
5 Franz Echter (MAN) +0:21m01

Overall Standings After Stage Three:

Bike:
1 Cyril Despres (KTM) in 9:38m58
2 Marc Coma (KTM) +0:00m14
3 Ruben Faria (KTM) +0:09m38
4 Paul Goncalves (BMW) +0:10m43
5 Jose Helio Rodrigues Filho (BMW) +0:16m07

Quad:
1 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) in 11:02m21
2 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) +0:00m12
3 Tomas Maffei (Yamaha) +0:01:12
4 Martin Plechaty (Yamaha) +0:19m08
5 Tomas Machacek (Yamaha) +0:22m32

Car:
1 Carlos Sainz (VW) in 9:12m05
2 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) +0:03m34
3 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +0:04m19
4 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:16m57
5 Krzysztof Holowczyc (BMW) +0:21m49

Truck:
1 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) in 9:38m58
2 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) +0:06m23
3 Ales Loprais (Tatra) +0:06m37
4 Franz Echter (MAN) +0:35m00
5 Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +0:38m58

Stage two and the 2011 Dakar Rally swings north through Argentina. Another stage whose nature played into the hands of the WRC drivers, and another day run in heavy rain continued to whittle down the potential winners, with severe delays for some of the front running car entrants that already appear to have crippled their chances of class victory.

Bikes: Despres’ Day

After missing out on victory yesterday, as Ruben Faria – his water carrier support rider – stole the class win reigning champion Cyril Despres came out on top on the second stage after leading at every checkpoint during the day.

“Today the track was full of bends and very skiddy, like a 300-km giant slalom with jumps, like skiing,” Despres said. “I noticed at the refuelling point that I’d taken almost a minute less than Coma. I was feeling good, so I decided to attack a bit in the second part, though I was careful to look after my tyres because I nearly wore them through today.”

Faria – handed a one minute penalty for speeding through populated areas yesterday – could only manage fifth fastest, losing nearly six minutes to Despres, and with his overall lead. Despres was challenged on the times by Marc Coma, and Sherco rider David Casteu, the Frenchman bouncing back from a slow first stage to claim third fastest and leap to sixth overall, one place ahead of American Jonah Street. Street’s countryman Quinn Cody – a multiple Baja winner – was among the leading riders through the early checkpoints, before losing six minutes in the second half of the stage. He ended the stage 13th quickest.

“I felt like I could’ve rode a little faster in the morning,” Street admitted. “I felt good, but I didn’t feel like I was carrying the right speed over the rises like I should be. Overall, I’m happy with the way I rode today. There is still a long way to go. These two stages are a lot different from what we’ll see in Chile”.

Another man back at the top after a relatively slow start was Chilean ‘Chaleco’ Lopez. A dark horse for victory in the eyes of many it is a reflection on his form that seventh yesterday was a disappointment, however, fourth fastest today lifts him to fourth fastest, behind the leading KTM trio.

Yesterday’s sufferer Pal Anders Ullevalseter, struggled again, losing another 20 minutes to Despres. Meanwhile Frenchman Alain Duclos was another to struggle yesterday, the Aprilia rider telling the often cliché story of a problem with a two Euro part which caused the rear hub to blow – a “slow motion” stage yesterday left him finishing at 9:45pm yesterday – five hours off the pace. Soldiering on he recorded the 19th best time on the second stages.

Quads: Premiere Patronelli

Alejandro Patronelli took a narrow win the in quad stage. The Argentine trailed yesterday’s pace setter Josef Machacek at the first checkpoint but led through the remaining nine split times, pulling out as much a two minutes lead before the Czech rider fought back to minimise the loss at just 23 seconds at the end of the stage.

“I just wanted to ride the stage,” Patronelli said. “I was not aiming for victory at all today. It was a clean stage, quite nice and not dangerous. There were a lot of bikes and plenty of dust. I was able to overtake a few bikers, but after that it got more difficult. It’s good to have won, but being 2nd in the general standings doesn’t mean much. For instance, if I get a puncture tomorrow, I could end up way back in the field. So, I’m going to continue racing my way, taking it day by day and trying to do the best I can”.

The result means Patronelli splits the Czechs Machacek and Plechaty as he moves into second place, the other Patronelli brother, however, languishes at the wrong end of the class standings – initially credited with the ninth fastest time on the first stage last year’s winner was given a colossal six hour penalty. Sergio la Fuente, initially fifth fastest was another to be penalised, though the 24 minutes lost pales in comparison to the nearly two hours lost on stage today.

The immediate beneficiary, in starting the day in fifth overall, Tomas Maffei, consolidated his top five standing with third fastest today, ahead of Sebastian Halpern, Plechaty and the penalised Patronelli.

Cars: A Second For Sainz

VW driver Carlos Sainz increased his lead in the fledgling class standings for the car entrants, taking a second win as yesterday’s runner-up Stephane Peterhansel lost a further 1m34 to the Spaniard, though he held to second overall.

It was, predictably another benefit for the diesel powered VW and BMW entrants, Nasser Al-Attiyah splitting Sainz and Peterhansel, taking second in his Touareg, with 2009 champion Giniel de Villiers taking fourth on the stage.

However, the fourth VW was the first to hit trouble. Just 45km into the 324km stage Mark Miller crashed, severely damaging his car – a broken windscreen, the bonnet ripped off and the right side door refusing to close. 20 minutes lost after the crash were compounded by another 17 minute halt later in the stage and the damage to the car forcing the American to continue the stage off the pace, the day ending with the loss of over 50 minutes.

“In a bend, we skidded and lost control of the car,” Miller describes the moment his Dakar went awry. “We rolled before we could get back on the track. After that, we had to stop and repair, especially the power steering. It was a really bad day for me. We’ll be able to continue, but now we’ll be driving to help the others now”.

It was not a good day for Americans in the cars as Hummer driver Robby Gordon also struggled, his 2WD car again ill-suited to the wet trails of the day. An off on a corner lodged the Hummer against a rock, Gordon having to enlist local help – people and a Fiat Panda, in a shade of orange deliciously close to that of the Hummer – to put him back into the rally. He ended the stage 55 minutes adrift of the ultimate stage time, the popular driver’s aims to keep with 10 minutes of the lead a distant hope after just two days. Hummer misery did not stop at Gordon, his teammate (former F1 driver Eliseo Salazar) losing four-and-a-half hours on stage today.

Moving in the other direction – forwards after a slow first day – was Guerlain Chicherit. The Frenchman claimed the seventh fastest time on stage in his Monster Energy backed MINI, behind his BMW X3 driving X-Raid Team teammates Orlando Terranova and Krzysztof Holowczyc who took fifth fastest on stage and fifth fastest overall respectively with Miller’s demise.

Trucks: Not Chagin Again

For much of the day it looked like Vladimir Chagin – the man known as ‘The Tsar’ – would take a second stage win and extend his lead among the trucks. The Russian led through all but one of the day’s nine tracking checkpoints.

However, a late problem saw his slip to fifth fastest on the day, his Kamaz teammate Firduas Kabirov keeping the team’s record intact by taking the stage win and moving to the overall lead after just two stages.

The top three are covered by just 22 seconds, Chagin in third behind Ales Loprais, who took second fastest on stage again today to install himself as the biggest challenge to the Kamaz crews.

German Franz Echter drove his MAN to third fastest today, with Brazilian Andre de Azevedo fourth. Racing journeyman Jan Lammers was creditable 18th fastest on the stage, and sits 31st overall.

2011 Dakar Rally Stage Two Results:

Bikes
1 Cyril Despres (KTM) in 3:19m11
2 Marc Coma (KTM) +0:01m49
3 David Casteu (KTM) +0:03m46
4 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:04m06
5 Ruben Faria (KTM) +0:05m42

Quads
1 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) in 3:40m35
2 Josef Machacek (Yamaha) +0:00m23
3 Tomas Maffei (Yamaha) +0:04m21
4 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:05m04
5 Martin Plechaty (Yamaha) +0:07:03

Cars
1 Carlos Sainz (VW) in 3:11m28
2 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) +0:01m03
3 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +0:01m34
4 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:05m43
5 Orlando Terranova (BMW) +0:08m14

Trucks
1 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) in 3:50m46
2 Ales Loprais (Tatra) +0:01m20
3 Franz Echter (MAN) +0:05m09
4 Andre de Azevedo (Tatra) +0:05m16
5 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) +0:06m14

Overall Rankings After Stage Two

Bikes
1 Cyril Despres (KTM) in 5:17m42
2 Marc Coma (KTM) +0:02m35
3 Ruben Faria (KTM) +0:06m13
4 Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) +0:06m51
5 Paulo Goncalves (BMW) +0:09m28

Quads
1 Josef Machacek (Yamaha) in 5:55m05
2 Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) +0:05m01
3 Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:07m45
4 Martin Plechaty (Yamaha) +0:07m46
5 Tomas Maffei (Yamaha) +0:10m24

Cars
1 Carlos Sainz (VW) in 5:29m20
2 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +0:03m45
3 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) +0:03m59
4 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:11m29
5 Krzysztof Holowczyc (BMW) +0:16m44

Trucks
1 Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) in 6:41m00
2 Alex Loprais (Tatra) +0:00m09
3 Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) +0:00m22
4 Andre de Azevedo (Tatra) +0:09m59
5 Franz Echter (MAN) +0:14m21

After the ceremonial start on New Year’s Day today (January 2) saw the first day of racing in the 2011 Dakar Rally. The task – a relatively easy by the Dakar’s usual standards with a timed stage of 192km for the bike and quad runners, and a longer 222km for the cars and trucks. However, with only a day gone many front runners have already hit trouble, with lost time and some (very) early retirements.

Bikes: Faria To The Fore

For many of the 160 or so bikers who left the start for the day at Victoria it was a voyage into the unknown. While the new 450cc bikes stipulated by the rules have been phased in over the last year it was the first time many of the front runners had taken them on the Dakar. The switch, however, changed little at the top of the times, with reigning champion Cyril Despres leading through the opening checkpoints.

There were difficulties for some with the new equipment – Pal Anders Ullevalseter, who finished second last year ended the day already 13 minutes off the ultimate pace. “For 10 years, I used to brake early because I was riding a big 690,” he explained. “Now I may not brake late. I have to learn. I did not participate in any race this year. It will take me two or three days to adjust to this 450cc bike.” The Norwegian’s frustrating day was compounded by an early delay to fix the antenna on his KTM.

At the top of the times it was a stage long battle between teammates Ruben Faria, Despres and fellow KTM man Marc Coma – The trio spent most of the day with little more than a minute between them, but it was the Portuguese Faria who stepped up to take the first stage and beat the two riders many expect to fight for class honours.

“This special stage looked very much like what I am used to seeing in Portugal,” said Faria. “I am glad to know that in the end it paid out and I got the day’s best clock. I did better today than many great riders with different driving styles. It’s already a good point of reference. I am also very happy to see that my teammate Cyril Despres also made excellent time.”

Portuguese Paulo Goncalves was the only non-KTM rider in the stage’s top five, taking fifth on his BWM, one place ahead of Jonah Street’s Yamaha. David Casteu – who won the opening stage last year – finished the day 14th fastest – nearly seven minutes in arrears.

Quads: Czech, Mate?

2010 saw the quads dominated by Argentines, the first stage of 2011 went the way of the Czech riders.

2009 class winner Josef Machacek took the stage win by 1m06 from his countryman and fellow Yamaha rider – the manufacturer swept the stage’s top ten – Martin Plechaty. Sebastian Halpern was the first Argentine home in third – just over three minutes adrift, while reigning champion Marcos Patronelli was ninth fastest, riding only a month after a serious injury in a practice crash.

Alejandro, the other Patronelli brother – the pair left the start ramp yesterday to considerable home support – finished the day fifth fastest.

Missing from the official timing at the time of writing is Polish rider Rafal Sonik, who spent much of day in the top five times before ‘disappearing’ from the tracker after six of the day’s seven checkpoints.

Cars: Sainz Picks Up Where He Left Off

After finally taking the win in 2010 Carlos Sainz immediately took the opportunity to open his 2011 with a dominant class win at the first attempt. As expected the day was dominated by the VW and BMW drivers but it was the World Rally champion’s Red Bull Touareg which posted the fastest time through all the checkpoints on the way to Cordoba.

Setting up what – mechanical and driving mistakes willing – could be a tremendous battle Stephane Peterhansel shadowed Sainz through all the checkpoints in second in his X-Raid Team BMW, the only man to penetrate the VW domination as Nasser Al-Attiyah, Mark Miller and Giniel de Villiers rounded out the top five.

Robby Gordon finished the stage eighth fastest – already struggling to keep pace with the 4WD pace setters as his 2WD Hummer slipped around on the tracks muddied by the heavy rain falling during the stage. He lost eleven minutes to the leaders. The rain led Sainz, once safe at the end of stage to liken the day to the Rally of Great Britain

Worst still was to affect Guerlain Chicherit and his gigantic, but minimally tested, MINI. Running competitively early the Frenchman was forced to stop on two occasions with mechanical problems that dropped him to (at the time of writing) record the 69th best time 57m45 off Sainz’s winning time.

“It’s hard. It’s very hard,” Chicherit said. “After 3 km we already had an alarm due to bad cooling. We managed up to 30 km before the end, then the brake discs gave in, splintered into the rim and blocked everything. I tried to unblock and go on like that but it was impossible. It’s hard. One year of work to get to this… it sure was a bad start. There is a lot of expectations on the car. A bad start indeed. Trouble is that tomorrow we will pay for today’s problems because it will be a long stretch and it will be very hard to pass other cars.”

Trucks: Chagin’s 57th Stage Win

In the trucks, too, the defending champion took the first stage win of the event, Vladimir Chagin, taking the glory on the stage by more than four minutes ahead of the Tatra of Ales Loprais, the Czech beating Chagin’s Kamaz teammate Firdaus Kabirov.

Eduard Nikolaev, in a third Kamaz rig was fourth fastest, but stage one was one to forget for the top Dutch contingent in the class. After sitting out the event last year Gerard de Rooy’s 2011 Dakar lasted just 72km. Reports on the rally’s site describe the Iveco jumping into the air, de Rooy stopping soon after landing. Complaining of a back injury – he missed 2010 with a back injury – he was flown to the bivouac in Cordoba, having to abandon his race on the first day.

The other high profile (and vastly unfortunate) casualty of the day was Wulfert van Ginkel. On the connecting road section which took the competitors to the stage start the Ginaf driver reportedly had to swerve to avoid a piece of metal in the road, a wheel on the truck blowing out and causing the truck to roll. The result was a totalled truck and a rally over before it had begun – for once not an exaggeration.

2011 Dakar Rally Stage 1 Results (and overall standings):

Bikes:
1. Ruben Faria (KTM) in 1:58m02
2. Cyril Despres (KTM) +0:00m29
3. Marc Coma (KTM) +0:01m15
4. Juan Pedrero Garcia (KTM) +0:02:13
5. Paulo Goncalves (BMW) +0:02:18

Quads:
1. Josef Machacek (Yamaha) in 2:14m07
2. Martin Plechaty (Yamaha) +0:01m06
3. Sebastian Halpern (Yamaha) +0:03:04
4. Rocha Sergio la Fuente (Yamaha) +0:03:10
5. Alejandro Patronelli (Yamaha) +0:05m24

Cars:
1 Carlos Sainz (VW) in 2:18m32
2 Stephane Peterhansel (BMW) +0:01m31
3 Nasser Al-Attiyah (VW) +0:02:16
4 Mark Miller (VW) +0:04m17
5 Giniel de Villiers (VW) +0:05m06

Trucks:
1. Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) in 2:44m22
2. Ales Loprais (Tatra) +0:04m41
3. Firdaus Kabirov (Kamaz) +0:05m52
4. Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) +0:09m16
5. Andre de Azevedo (Tatra) +0:10m35