X-RAID TEAM NEWS
32nd Dakar Rally (January 1st-17th, 2010)
Stage 4: Fiambalá-Copiapó: liaison, 394km; special, *203km; liaison, 32km, total, 629km. (*Stage shortened by 43km to 160km to finish at PC3)
For immediate release
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
PETERHANSEL TAKES SECOND IN FIRST ATACAMA STAGE TO
EXTEND OVERALL ADVANTAGE FOR TEAM X-RAID GMBH
- X-Raid’s Chicherit maintains 11th; Novitskiy eighth fastest
- Spain’s Joan Roma forced out after third stage accident
COPIAPÓ (Chile): Team X-raid GmbH’s Stéphane Peterhansel and Jean-Paul Cottret produced another sensational performance to take the second fastest time on the fourth special stage of the 2010 Dakar Rally between Fiambalá in Argentina and Copiapó in Chile on Tuesday.
The French duo missed out on a second successive stage win by a mere one second in their BMW X3CC, despite being the first crew into the Atacama desert stage this afternoon.
They slipped behind Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah for several kilometres in terms of virtual stage timing, but a late charge by the Frenchman extended his overall lead to 7m 36s, as American Robbie Gordon pinched the stage victory.
“This was a superb performance by Stéphane after starting first on the road,” said a delighted team director Sven Quandt.
Guerlain Chicherit and Tina Thõrner began the day in 11th overall and fifth on the road in a second BMW X3 CC. They were delayed early in the special and eventually set the 11th fastest time to maintain a similar position in the overall standings.
Numerous vehicles were still stranded in the dunes at nightfall on Monday and the organisers elected to delay the start of Tuesday’s special stage by 90 minutes and finish the stage at the third passage control, 43km from the originally intended finish.
The first 37km to PC1 took place over stony ground, before the stage became more sandy and switched to desert-like terrain from 90km to the revised finishing point at PC3.
Peterhansel took a 4m 33s overall advantage over Spaniard Carlos Sainz into the day. He maintained a 24-second virtual stage lead over Al-Attiyah through the first checkpoint – despite being the first car into the stage – although Chicherit dropped six minutes to the leading duo and was down in 21st position on the day’s special.
Al-Attiyah moved 35 seconds ahead of BMW’s overnight leader through 83km, but Peterhansel closed the gap to a mere six seconds after 111km, as the pair began to edge away from Sainz.
Russia’s Leonid Novitskiy slipped to 19th in the overall standings at the start of the trek across the Andes and had South Africa’s Alfie Cox to thank for helping him out of a soft sandy grave in intense heat on the run into Fiambalá, after he suffered a drive train issue.
The Russian and his two-time Dakar-winning co-driver Andreas Schulz recorded the 25th fastest time on the stage yesterday and followed that up with the eighth fastest time on stage four to climb back towards the top 15 in the overall standings.
Spaniard Joan ‘Nani’ Roma and his French co-driver Michel Périn have been forced to retire as a result of the damage sustained to their BMW X3 CC in an accident between La Rioja and Fiambalá on Monday.
The pair drove over a dune and fell into a large canyon behind a sandy ridge. The car plummeted several metres, rolled during the incident and hit the ground hard with the impact damaging the rear right corner of the BMW. One wheel was also lost in the accident.
The crew arrived at the bivouac in Fiambalá at 22.45hrs (local time) on Monday evening, pulled by one of X-raid’s assistance trucks, but the car was damaged beyond repair. Roma slightly injured his hand in the incident but, contrary to earlier reports, his hand is not broken.
Tomorrow (Wednesday) the rally crosses the daunting Atacama desert, passing numerous gold and copper mining projects, en route to the booming coastal city of Antofagasta.
High temperatures are likely to make the soft sand and ‘fesh-fesh’ treacherously difficult to cross, as crews embark upon a 483km special stage in a total route of 670km, with a 90km liaison taking team to the start of the stage at Inca del Ora and a 97km link spiralling down towards sea level and the overnight halt by the Pacific Ocean.
2010 Dakar Rally – positions on SS4 (unofficial @ 16.20 hrs):
1. Robbie Gordon (USA)/Andy Grider (USA) Hummer 1h 40m 21s
2. Stéphane Peterhansel (F)/Jean-Paul Cottret (F) BMW X3 CC 1h 40m 22s
3. Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah (QA)/Timo Gottschalk (D) Volkswagen Race Touareg 1h 42m 47s
4. Carlos Sainz (E)/Lucas Cruz (E) Volkswagen Race Touareg 1h 43m 25s
5. Giniel de Villiers (ZA)/Ralph Pitchford (ZA) Volkswagen Race Touareg 1h 44m 35s
6. Mark Miller (USA)/Ralph Pitchford (ZA) Volkswagen Race Touareg 1h 46m 35s
8. Leonid Novitskiy (RUS)/Andreas Schulz (D) BMW X3 CC 1h 51m 25s
11. Guerlain Chicherit (F)/Tina Thörner (S) BMW X3 CC 1h 53m 05s
2010 Dakar Rally – overall positions after SS4 (unofficial @ 16.20 hrs):
1. Stéphane Peterhansel (F)/Jean-Paul Cottret (F) BMW X3 CC 10h 54m 50s
2. Carlos Sainz (E)/Lucas Cruz (E) Volkswagen Race Touareg 11h 02m 26s
3. Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah (QA)/Timo Gottschalk (D) Volkswagen Race Touareg 11h 04m 46s
4. Mark Miller (USA)/Ralph Pitchford (ZA) Volkswagen Race Touareg 11h 14m 15s
5. Alfie Cox (ZA)/Jürgen Schrõder (D) Nissan Overdrive 11h 54m 20s
6. Krzysztof Holowczyc (PL)/Jean-Marc Fortin (B) Nissan Overdrive 11h 55m 28s
7. Carlos Sousa (P)/Matthieu Baumel (F) Mitsubishi Racing Lancer 11h 57m 50s
8. Robbie Gordon (USA)/Andy Grider (USA) Hummer 11h 59m 43s
9. Guilherme Spinelli (BR)/Filipe Palmeiro (P) Mitsubishi Racing Lancer 12h 11m 13s
10. Maurizio Neves (BR)/Clecio Maestrelli (BR) Volkswagen Race Touareg 12h 15m 25s
11. Guerlain Chicherit (F)/Tina Thörner (S) BMW X3 CC 12h 19m 53s
18. Leonid Novitskiy (RUS)/Andreas Schulz (D) BMW X3 CC 13h 32m 31s
Ends
Further information and photos are available at www.x-raid.de or contact Stefanie Marquard/Thomas Quandt at X-raid GmbH, Tel: + 49 (0) 6147 204670, E-mail: s.marquard@x-raid.de and t.quandt@x-raid.de.