The French Stephane Peterhansel (Peugeot) regained the leadership of the Dakar car competition on Wednesday after the debacle of his Spanish teammate Carlos Sainz, who suffered a gearbox failure and was out of the race.
After taking first place on Tuesday, the 53-year-old Peugeot DKR2008 came to a stop at kilometer 213 of the special, 31 from the finish.
In this way, as last year in the Chilean city of Antofagasta, the Spanish rider lived his grayer day, since in addition to the breakdown, he skipped a crossing point, suffered a puncture and was stranded in the sand.
The French Stephane Peterhansel, who yesterday avoided a penalty for an alleged illegal refueling, climbed back to first place with his third stage win, with a lead of 5:40 minutes over Cyril Despres, also from the Peugeot team.
I’ve been taking risks and driving hard. I have attacked thoroughly because I knew that it was today when I had to do it. The special was very complicated at the level of navigation, off-piste, channels. All the complications one can run into in a rally. Although the difference of one hour is important, it is not necessary to trust “, emphasized ‘Monseiur Dakar’, that today added his triumph of stage number 35 in the Dakar in cars.
“We had not left this morning to do this performance. Fiambalá is always complicated, I have already lost a Dakar in this area and today I did not want to make mistakes, “said Despres upon arrival in La Rioja.
The third place of this stage, reduced to 244 of the 278 total kilometers due to the rising of a river, went to the Russian Vladimir Vasilyev (Toyota), while fourth was the Spanish Nani Roma (Mini), at 14:33 minutes of Peterhansel, in what was his best performance of this edition.
For his part, Qatari Nasser Al Attiyah (Mini) had a significant delay in this stage and finished 52:25 minutes behind the winner. he is now second overall, exactly one time from Peterhansel.
“We have turned around when we hit a slope when we were 10 kilometers on the special and we had to wait a long time to turn the car around. Today we had to take risks, but from then on it has been difficult, because the car was not working well and we were forced to finish the stage without further setbacks, “said Al Attiyah.
The novelty of this tenth stage was the start, called ‘Super Fiambalá’, in which the ten best motorcycles and quads, the ten best cars and the five best trucks were mixed.
This situation led to a great confusion of representatives of the four categories in search of the crossing points, mainly in the first hundred kilometers of the special.
Among the bikes, the Slovak Stefan Svitko (KTM) cut by 5:47 minutes the disadvantage with respect to the leader, Toby Price (KTM), by winning the marathon stage of the Dakar, although the Australian, who finished third, remains as leader in the general classification of motorcycles.
The Slovakian added his first stage victory in this edition of the Dakar, while his escort this Wednesday was Argentine Kevin Benavides (Honda), second at 2:54 minutes.
«It has been an important day. Having suffered the motorcycle yesterday with the heat, I did not want to step on it much. I have also been very careful with navigation. Two riders have caught up with me, but I can’t complain because it was a good stage. Now I can concentrate a little more on defending, I no longer need to attack, as I did yesterday, to buy time, “said Price.
After this day, and with three stages ahead of him to finish the race, Price maintains a difference of 23:12 minutes over Svitko and 34:15 over the Portuguese Paulo Gonçalves (Honda), who today arrived in fourth place.
The great fight is for fourth place overall with three contenders: Chilean Pablo Quintanilla (Husqvarna), French Antoine Meo (KTM) and Argentine Kevin Benavides (Honda).
«It has been a good stage. I fell but luckily it was a fall without consequences. The route was difficult, there was a lot of navigation and the flooding of the rivers due to the rains posed many difficulties. There was also a lot of mud, something rare here. The dunes were wet and very soft, so from what I’ve seen, I’m happy with how the stage went, “said Benavides.
“It has not been a good day. I tried to make up time, but when I got to the petrol station, my rear wheel was damaged. I have repaired it that way and since then it has been impossible for me to attack, “said Quintanilla.
Among the quads, the winner of the stage was the South African Brian Baragwanath, ahead of the brothers Marcos and Alejandro Patronelli, all three with Yamaha.
In this way, Marcos continues as leader of the general classification with 1:32 minutes of advantage over his brother Alejandro, in this edition that marks the return of the Patronelli to the competition.
In the trucks category, Dutch Pascal De Baar (Renault) surprised by staying with today’s stage, ahead of his compatriot Gerard De Rooy (Iveco) and Airat Mardeev (Kamaz).
After ten stages contested, the Dutch De Rooy leads the classification with more than an hour and fifteen minutes of advantage over his escort Mardeev; Argentine Federico Villagra (Iveco) remains in third place, despite suffering a cooling problem today that delayed him to ninth place. EFE
Peterhansel takes advantage of the Sainz debacle and Price continues on his way to the title
