900 kilometers long road section on the roads, which are said to organizers, «is too narrow for the truck,» and 481 kilometer special stage (half of them — a high-speed CS) for all but the truck. Those shortened to 267 kilometers ext.
Dust, thickets and rocks on roadsides, stream beds... All go carefully, even those who are already «almost» winners because «almost» in the «Dakar» nothing happens.
Gerard De Rooy knows this better than anyone else. Victory eluded him more thanonce. That's why he prefers to play it safe, keep the golden mean, so as not to scare this coveted second Bedouin.
«Dakar», meanwhile, in two stages from the finish shows the insidious nature. Burned Tatra Dutchman Gert Huzinka ... EngineKAMAZ Dmitry Sotnikov refuses to work...
For Federico Villagra, he is to go to the second position. But similar plans Verluis and Peter. And they all pose a threat to Ayrat Mardeeva ...
On stage, the first to come Verluis. He rode at the bivouac, assessing their chances are pretty optimistic. From the results of the second day of Eduard Nikolaev separates him 5 minutes, and if we remember that the previous two phases were formed for him worse than ever (10 stage, he changed the punctured wheel 9 times), if not a great day!
Close to midnight, in front of his name suddenly appeared a penalty of 1 hour and 19 minutes for one of the last steps and he fell to ninth place in the general standings. «This Sporting Life...»
In the car competition strategy is the same as that of the truck: to keep the gains. Sebastien Loeb, Cyril Despres have forgotten about their own ambitions. Now they are all at the disposal ofStephane Peterhansel to maintain the existing 40-minute lead in the general classification.
«It was a long, exhausting stage, — says Bruno Famin, Director of Peugeot Sport, — o n lasted an hour longer than scheduled. Cyril and David Sebastian and Daniel were kept far away from Stephen and Jean-Paul in the case will have to sacrifice parts or just help them out of difficulties. Fortunately, it was not necessary. »
In competition motorcycles Toby Price focused on to keep the lead. Among the quad is the same problem the brothers Patronelli, while Sergei Koryakina, left on third place (Brian Baragvan made a navigational error and rolled 6 position), how much more difficult task — he has to come back to the podium....
He began the final stage of the race. Soon we will know who honor the Bedouins of the attention at the finish in Rosario.
Photo: Press-service of the team «KAMAZ-master», dakar.com and other open sources.
