As you may already have read I am currently on the second half of the 2010 Dakar rally in Argentina. As a guest of VW Motorsport I have been at close quarters with the team and more importantly the driving squad.
After today’s penultimate stage the tension was palpable within the camp as the team’s newest driver, Nasser Al-Attiyah took a big chunk out of former WRC-winner and all-time driving legend, Carlos Sainz’s overall lead.
The night before the stage took place Al-Attiyah told me over dinner that he would be going flat out to try to take the lead, or at very least reduce it to a minimum.
And that’s exactly what the Qatari royal did. On a sandy stage with several large dunes, which suits his driving style, Al-Attiyah caught his more senior team-mate who refused to move over. At the point that the young charger made his overtaking manoeuvre there was contact between the blue cars, which did not impress the Spaniard.
Forced to drive in dust of the fast-moving Al-Attiyah, Sainz lost more time and in just the last two days the younger, less illustrious VW driver has halved Sainz’s lead.
Vitally, by finishing ahead of Sainz today, Al-Attiyah starts ahead which means that the times could be decided by the dust/visibility factor.
As the sun set over the final Bivouac in the cheerful little town of Santa Rosa, the final stage of 2010 Dakar rally is set for an epic battle between a rallying legend and a relatively unknown newcomer to the fold.
VW team members insist that there are no team orders, and even if there were, we doubt that either one of these highly competitive drivers would heed them.
