Frenchmen Stephane Peterhansel and Jean Paul Cottret continue to lead the Dakar Rally after a tough first week of competition. They’ve consistently kept their Mini X-Raid at the front of the field, but the lead duo have a fierce rival in the Red Bull Qatar buggy of Nasser Al-Attiyah and Lucas Cruz.
The 2013 Dakar’s first week saw a tough conclusion in what was supposed to be the longest stage of the event so far, but overnight rains saw stage 8 shortened and then further delayed by a swollen river – proving that the Dakar is a truly unpredictable event. After all the officiating and results tallying were complete, the leaderboard remains in favour of the leading Mini.
“My first big mistake since the start of the rally – I insisted on following the motorcycle tracks but it was the wrong direction. Jean-Paul pressured me to look for a way out of the riverbed, but I continued for 2,5 km before retracing my steps, which means I’d gone 5 km too far and lost almost 9 minutes,” Peterhansel said of the torrid conditions.
Qatari Al-Attiyah and Spaniard Cruz are just 3 minutes 14 seconds behind the leaders, while South African Giniel de Villiers and German co-driver Dirk von Zitzewitz are 44 minutes 3 seconds off the pace in third overall.
“It was quite a challenging stage. It went well for us. We started fifth and overtook Nasser when he suffered a puncture. Then we reached a river, which was totally flooded. It was impossible to cross. We heard from the organisers that the rest of the stage was neutralised and that the result would be taken as at Check Point 2,” De Villiers said.
De Villiers’ compatriot Sarel van Biljon has been performing well in the quad category, culminating in a win on stage 8 and remained third overall, though he is still a long way off the lead – a little more than two hours.
“A complicated special that was difficult in the sandy part at the beginning, where we had a nice duel with Marcos Patronelli, but I eventually opened a gap following a navigational mistake on his part and then I went flat out until the finish,” said Dakar debutant van Biljon.
Fellow South Africans Riaan van Niekerk, Brett Cummings and Darryl Curtis all improved their positions in the overall bike standings as well and are now 14th, 16th and 18th respectively.
A half-hour Dakar highlights package will be screened on SuperSport2 (DStv channel 202) at 10pm every day, with five repeats the following day, from January 5.
