South Africa scored a famous one-two at the weekend when Giniel de Villiers won the gruelling Dakar Rally. Compatriot Ralph Pitchford, who was the co-driver to American Mark Miller in the sister VW Touareg, finished second.
De Villiers won the car section and Mark Coma triumphed in the motorcycle category following a 227km special from Rioja to Cordoba. Unlike the typical short final special seen in Africa, the new Dakar route made the last stage more challenging.
The multiple South African driver’s champion and German co-driver Dirk van Zitzewitz led Miller and Pitchford by two minutes, 20 seconds going into the final special and increased his lead to almost nine minutes by the end of the conclusive SS14.
VW had scored the first victory for a diesel engine in the car category and dominated the South American event to such an extent that Mitsubishi, which had won the event seven consecutive years until 2006, finished a distant tenth.
“It’s just incredible,” said De Villiers, the runner up in 2006. “I was so nervous in the last kilometers. I kept looking at how many kilometers we still had to go. But I must say this is an incredible feeling. I am so thrilled for the whole team, for Volkswagen that supported us for 5 years before we could get to this victory.”
Robby Gordon for Team Dakar USA won the Open class and finished third overall in a Hummer. South African Dakar legend Alfie Cox, at the wheel of a Buggy, was classified in 74th position in the overall car standings after suffering mechanical problems and incurring a stiff time penalty earlier in the event.
Meanwhile, Coma, who’d kept his KTM far ahead for most of the rally sealed his dominance of the motorcycle category. His closest rival and team-mate, Cyril Despres, crossed the line in second, followed by 450cc class winner David Fretigne in third. Frans Verhoeven was victorious in the Marathon category.
For the first time the Quads were scored separately from the bikes and Czech Josef Machacek was the first overall winner of the new main class. Marcos Patronelli took second while Rafal Sonik came home in third in the overall.
In the battle of the Kamaz trucks, Russian Firdaus Kabirov beat compatriot Vladimir Chagin by a mere three and a half minutes.
For 15 days out under the Argentinean and Chilean skies the 2009 competitors faced 14 planed special stages that took them over the Andes, across sand dunes and dodge cacti on their grand loop around Buenos Aires.
Volkswagen’s Carlos Sainz and Qatari Nasser Al Attiyah of BMW had been the early pace-setters but Al Attiyah was disqualified for having skipped official control points after the sixth stage and the Spaniard crashed out two days from the end.
Defending champion Stephane Peterhansel and his Mitsubishi team-mates, former winners Luc Alphand and Hiroshi Masuoka, all pulled out in the first week.
This year’s race was marred by the death of French rider Pascal Terry, who was found dead early on January 7 three days after he suffered an accident and disappeared during the second stage.
