The 2010 Dakar pilots had to earn their rest day by tackling a 600km timed special stage. In the end, Nasser Al-Attiyah was sitting pretty after emerging victorious from the Atacama Desert.
Despite the accidents of the previous day, the top competitors knew they would have to maintain a solid pace throughout the stage to stay in the top order. That is exactly what Cyril Despres and Marc Coma did on their KTMs. The duo recorded a one-two in the bike class with the Frenchman finishing a nose ahead of his stable-mate.
In the cars Al-Attiyah will be in an even better mood than usual after he chalked up another stage win. I spoke to the man from Qatar before stage seven and he fancied his experience in the sand count would make the difference. Nasser ended up taking 4mins 21secs out of Carlos Sainz’s lead while Stéphane Peterhansel returned to form in his BMW to finish the stage in second place.
Once again the Hermanos Patronelli dominated the quad class and after yet another one-two they stay top of their division. Marcos holds a healthy two-hour plus lead over his sibling Alejandro. Despite being behind, Alejandro told us he enjoys making the Dakar a family affair.
“My brother and I decided to ride together. It went almost perfectly, we just had some little problems. I had a puncture 200 km from the finish line but I kept going. Marcos also had a puncture and we had tied up his rear left wheel with a wire 50 km from the finish line.”
“Our rivals are far behind. The way is clear until Buenos Aires, but we must proceed with caution. Today’s stage was so impressive, we met up with all possible types of terrain.”
The third-placed quad rider is another hour behind Alejandro so their could well be some jubilant scenes in the Argentine capital come the end of the Dakar.
The Kamaz Truck of Vladimir Chagin, Sergey Savostin and Eduard Nikolaev managed to make winning their stage look effortless. Chagin’s crew managed to grab another half an hour advantage on their team-mates of Firdaus Kabirov’s trio in the overall standings.
With their nearest competitor nearly six hours behind who would begrudge the members of Team Kamaz a few cold ones tonight?
Clash of the Titans
In the last seven days I found out that you can't make any predictions in the Dakar Rally. We have seen one of the infallible Volkswagen team depart the race and the ultra-consistent Peterhansel losing a stack of time. We even saw Coma incur a time penalty and a host of other problems which had me and a few other commentators thinking his race was run.
KTM/Red Bull Photofiles
Cyril was clearly looking forward to the rest day when I caught up with him after he had covered 600km in seven and a half hours. “I went into a large ditch at the 150km mark and exploded the hydraulics of my shock absorber. Since then it felt like I was riding on a spring. I took all the shocks in my arms, wrists and neck, in the end it was almost unbearable.”
The French rider was happy to reach the midway point in first place, after all he knows the potential pitfalls of the race better than most. “I knew I could count on my tyres and the bike didn’t suffer anything more than the loss of hydraulics. I will have to look at all the screws and bolts but the bike took me here and that’s good.”
Cyril’s team-mate and main rival Coma moved into second place overall with his ride on stage seven. It was a steady display from Marc who was no doubt keen for a day with out drama. “Today, I had to be mindful of the speed to save my tyres.”
Cyril and Marc will use the rest day to plot their tactics for the remainder of the race. Cyril has the time advantage but Marc has nothing to lose. I may well pick up a few splinters on the fence but this race will be gloriously unpredictable to the end.
Daily Dakar Daiquiri Moment: Running on empty
Heading along the road between Iquique and Antofagasta for the second time in two days the scenery proved to be just as breathtaking. Sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the dunes of the Atacama Desert on some asphalt I had none of Cyril’s worries over shock absorbers.
But I did find out that I had one thing common with Cyril; the need for fuel. So as the Volkswagen Amarok started pinking, a certain amount of panic set in. Shortly after, the 4x4 coughed along for about 200 yards before coming to standstill 100km away from the safety of Antofagasta.
“Oh dear, this is a tricky spot” was the general consensus in our car. Finally taking our heads out of our hands we stuck a few thumbs up at the side of the highway. Within a minute a support truck full of friendly Catalans pulled over, out came the pipe and enough diesel was transferred to see us back to the bivouac.
Thanks to the trio from Barcelona of Jordi Ingles, David Bosser and Marc Torres, my Dakar continues. Veterans of the rally speak of a special something that keeps them coming back year after year. Today in remote wilderness, I got my first taste of the ‘Spirit of the Dakar’.
For more info, visit the official Dakar Rally website, the Volkswagen Motorsport site or Twitter along with driver Mark Miller.
iPhone users can also follow all the Dakar action with Volkswagen Motorsport’s free Dakar Rally app.
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