The 2017 Dakar Rally took a turn for the worst this weekend when the Bolivian-based stages were bombarded with torrential rainstorms. Despite suffering from a substantial cut-down in distance, however, there was still enough competition taking place in between the storms.
Friday’s stage five, which had been cut down from 416 km to 219 km, took place from Tupiza to Ororu and saw Peugeot’s Sebastien Leob and Toyota Overdrive’s Nani Roma battling it out for the top spot, with Loeb eventually claiming victory by 44 seconds.
Giniel de Villiers experienced difficulty in these conditions as he suffered a 30-minute loss in time, dragging him down to eighth position overall. Mikko Hirvonen in the Mini also suffered a 40-minute delay, causing him to drop to fifth place overall.
The sixth stage of Dakar on Saturday was cancelled altogether as the heavy rains continued. The main reason behind this was due to the fact that many of the competitors were unable to reach the starting point as the conditions were too extreme.
Stage seven also saw the effects of heavy rain and has since been cut down to 161 km, fit in between a 400 km and 240 km link sections.
The current standings are as follows:
1. Stephane Peterhansel (Peugeot) 14 h 02 min 58 sec
2. Sebastien Loeb (Peugeot) +1 min 09 sec
3. Cyril Despres (Peugeot) +4 min 54 sec
4. Nani Roma (Toyota) +5 min 35 sec
5. Mikko Hirvonen (Mini) +42 min 21 sec
6. Jakub Przygonski (Mini) +59 min 55 sec
7. Orlando Terranova (Mini) +1 h 04 min 49 sec
8. Giniel De Villiers (Toyota) +1 h 08 min 11 sec
9. Boris Garafulic (Mini) +1 h 57 min 40 sec
10. Romain Dumas (Peugeot) +2 h 22 min 17 sec
