Argentinian Orlando Terranova and Portuguese co-driver Paulo Fiuza managed their first stage win of the 2013 Dakar yesterday when their X-Raid BMW X3 finished ahead of Joan ‘Nani’ Roma and overall leader Stephane Peterhansel’s Minis on the 353 km stage between Cordoba and La Rioja.
The local hero made full use of his home ground advantage to dominate on the rocky turf that made up the majority of the terrain on yesterday’s stage, earning his first stage victory in seven Dakar Rally participations and becoming the first Argentinian to win a Dakar stage on home soil. Terranova and Fiuza finished stage ten 2 minutes 7 seconds ahead of Roma and Michel Perin, with Peterhansel and Jean Paul Cottret a further 12 seconds behind.
“It’s my first stage win with Paulo and we are happy. The car is running well, without problems. Now we have Fiambala tomorrow. We must open, but it’s okay. We are going to drive very easy because we must pass Fiambala. I’m liking driving the car. Peru was very nice, also Chile was nice. But this kind of stage is very, very nice. We took the stage very easily, to not make a mistake because it was very narrow and it was possible to burst a tyre or break some piece of the car,” Terranova said yesterday.
South African Giniel de Villiers and German co-driver Dirk von Zitzewitz managed fourth on stage 10, 5 minutes 26 seconds behind the leading X3. After de Villiers inherited second overall thanks to the mechanical failure of Nasser Al-Attyah’s buggy, the Imperial Toyota Hilux’s deficit to Peterhansel’s Mini could have been closed if the tracks were completely open to the South African’s attack yesterday.
“We didn’t have any problems today, but this morning I wasn’t quite feeling 100 per cent and not in the right rhythm. But nevertheless, we caught Robby (Gordon) after about 180 kilometres and it’s impossible to get close and use the sentinel on these kinds of roads. At one stage we were about 15 or 20 seconds behind him, but, you know, it’s still not close enough. There was one place where I had a bit of a moment in the dust, so we decided it wasn’t worth taking the risk, so we just sat behind him because you can’t get close enough in the dust, so that’s what we did,” de Villiers admitted.
A half-hour Dakar highlights package is screened on SuperSport2 (DStv channel 202) at 10pm every day, with five repeats the following day.
