Mitsubishi driver Hiroshi Masuoka has his sights on victory in the Dakar Rally in Senegal this weekend after opening up a massive 52 minutes and nine seconds lead on Thursday. South African Alfie Cox is in a commanding third place in the motorcycle section.
Mitsubishi driver Hiroshi Masuoka has his sights on victory in the Dakar Rally in Senegal this weekend after opening up a massive 52 minutes and nine seconds lead on Thursday. South African Alfie Cox is in a commanding third place in the motorcycle section.
Masuoka finished the 450km 13th stage in Tichit, Mauritania, 4 min and 41 sec ahead of Frenchman Jean-Pierre Fontenay. Masuoka’s team-mate Kenjiro Shinozuka was third and is in second place overall.
Defending champion Jutta Kleinschmidt of Germany was fourth on Thursday, 26min 25sec behind Masuoka and is in third place overall.
Stephane Peterhansel, driving a South African-built Nissan gave up at the start of the 13th stage. Peterhansel was 25th overall at that point.
KTM rider Giovani Sala of Italy won the motorcycle stage. He was followed by overall leader Fabrizio Meoni, Isidre Esteve Pujol and Joan Nani Roma in fourth place. Roma is second overall. The third-placed Cox finished the stage in fifth position. He lost about four minutes to Meoni and is now just over 16 min off the pace, but is not worried.
Cox said his fifth place was part of a plan. “We sat down and planned a strategy over the last two nights. Because the followers manage to catch the front-runners daily, I planned my stages to try to gain some time on Nani Roma and Fabrizio Meoni.
“Because I started first today, the front followers soon caught up, which resulted in my time loss against Roma and Meoni.
“It is clear that one day you perform well, even win a stage, but the very next day you have to ride in front and leave tracks for the followers while you navigate all the time. It is definite that the leader runs slower than the follower group.
“My plan was to finish a little further back today and be the one who can play catch-up on the final long stage. Unfortunately Roma played a cat and mouse game today and stayed back with me to prevent me from building a big gap between us. He will start directly ahead of me on Friday.
“My final objective is to pressurise Roma, who must have a massive psychological barrier, never having finished a Dakar race before.
“Other than my record of finishing all the Dakar races I competed in, I actually have one of the most consistent track records amongst all the KTM riders. I’ve completed every international race I have entered over the past five years and in most of those I finished in the top five,” he said.
On Friday competitors head into the first half of the second marathon section from windswept Tichit to Kiffa. Competitors set off directly on the 457km special up to Kiffa. There, a compulsory eight-hour “break” has been organised before continuing on a 450km liaison, by night, up to Boutilimit.
At Boutilimit another “break” will be taken on Saturday morning before attacking the second special. Finally on Saturday, a liaison stage of 396 km takes competitors to Dakar, the capital of Senegal.