American Robby Gordon took his first stage victory of this year’s edition of The Dakar, bringing his Hummer in just a second faster than multiple Dakar winner, Stephane Peterhansel’s BMW X-Raid X3 and moved up three places to eighth in the overall standings, while the Frenchman continued to extend his lead overall.
Gordon, with a time of 1h40m21s on yesterday’s leg from Fiambala to Copiapo, finished 2m26s ahead of third-placed Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah’s Volkswagen Race Touareg, but is still more than an hour behind Peterhansel overall.
Peterhansel now boasts 7m36s over his closest rival, multiple WRC champion Carlos Sainz, and 9m59s over Sainz’s VW teammate Al-Attiyah. Defending Dakar champion Giniel de Villiers is three hours behind after experiencing engine trouble with his Touareg on Monday, but compatriot Alfie Cox has made a strong showing in his Nissan Navara and is now fifth overall, an hour behind Peterhansel.
Crossing over the Andes and into the Atacama desert, one of the driest regions on Earth, Gordon’s Hummer performed much better than on Monday and seemed at home in the type of conditions faced during the 203 km long special stage.
“It’s on this type of terrain that the Hummer is doing great. A stage victory means nothing to us – it’s the final victory we are in for. I am sure that today we managed to climb up in the standings and we will see how Chile will treat us. We should be good in the sand dunes,” exclaimed Gordon.
Peterhansel was posed to set a record 53rd stage victory, when Gordon surprised the field with his Hummer’s prowess. “In some places it was not easy navigating. But Jean-Paul (Cottret) did a great job. We hesitated twice and twice we entered rocky grounds. We had the impression we were losing time but apparently, so did the others. We don’t know yet what the qualities of the cars are, we don’t race each other all year long,” said Peterhansel.
Today’s fifth leg from Copiapo to the port City of Antofagasta is the second longest timed section this year, with 483 km of special stage and a total of 668 km. The varied route is comprised of flat fast sections, very rocky off-road and plenty of Chilean “fesh-fesh” – very soft terrain that reportedly has a texture similar to flour.
