Calama, Chile - Defending champion Nani Roma gained a consolation victory in the Dakar Rally ninth stage on Tuesday as Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah increased his overall lead after “a terrible mistake” by main rival Giniel de Villiers.
Roma - whose hopes of a second consecutive overall win evaporated on the first stage because of electrical failure - completed the 538km (450km timed) drive from the Chilean Pacific coastal city of Iquique to Calama in the Andes six-and-a-half minutes clear of Al-Attiyah.
The 2011 Dakar winner's bold showing bolstered his bid for a second title.
Mini thought they had sealed a 1-2-3 in the stage but their hopes were dashed late on in the day as Frenchman Guerlain Chicherit, who started the stage in a lowly 70th spot, recorded a superb time to snatch third in a buggy.
‘TERRIBLE MISTAKE’
Al-Attiyah has a near 24-minute cushion over works Toyota driver De Villiers, who was kicking himself after losing his way, eventually taking fourth.
De Villiers blamed “a terrible, terrible navigation mistake” on his unscheduled and unwanted driveabout in the Chilean countryside.
“That's cost us the race,” he lamented. “You know, sometimes it goes like this in the Dakar and there's nothing you can do about it. It's not impossible for Nasser to make a mistake, but with the lead he has now he can take it really easy.”
"We knew we had to try something special today," he explained. "We identified a slightly shorter route and if it came off we would have taken a fair bit of time from Nasser. As it turned out, it wasn't the right decision, and the entire situation was made worse when we couldn't find one of the waypoints in the choking dust."
By the time the dust settled over Stage 9, Al-Attiyah held a 23m58s lead over De Villiers, with fellow Toyota driver, Saudi Arabian Yazeed Al-Rahji, holding steady in third place, sixteen minutes further back.
With four days to go before Saturday's finish in Buenos Aires, Al-Attiyah can now start to realistically contemplate his second title.
“It was not easy, but, OK, I think we made a good job of it and I hope it will be enough to win the Dakar,” said the driver who has represented Qatar in shooting at the Olympics.
“I think we did a good job and to finish here in front of Giniel is the key.”
Mini's domination of Tuesday's podium was completed by Russian Vladimir Vasilyev.
For Leeroy Poulter in the second works Toyota Hilux, the waypoint in question also presented difficulties.
"By the time we reached that point, the ground had been churned up a lot," said Poulter after the stage. "It's also an area filled with fine fesh-fesh dust, and the crews ahead of us were milling around trying to find the waypoint. As a result we couldn't see much, and it took us more than an hour to pin down the spot before we could move on."
Poulter posted the 27th fastest time on Tuesday's stage but, due to the other crews also losing time in the thick dust, maintained his 18th position overall. Nevertheless, he would have to start 27th on the road for Stage 10, which placed him in the midst of slower crews, together with the resulting dust.
Johan van Staden in the lone South African Nissan Navara took almost eight hours to complate a stage that the leader finished in less than five; he finished 48th for the day but retained his 33rd position overall.
MOTORCYCLES
In the bikes section, Portugal's Helder Rodrigues claimed his second stage win of 2015 as Marc Coma had his overall lead cut by three minutes.
Rodrigues crossed the finish line in the Andes almost four minutes clear of his team-mate and fellow countryman Paul Goncalves.
Third was Coma, whose advantage over Goncalves in the riders' title race is now only five-and-a half minutes.
Chile's Pablo Quintanilla - who won Monday's marathon stage on home turf - was third in the overall standings, almost half an hour adrift of the leading pair.
Joan Barreda Bort, who saw his Dakar Rally dream go up in smoke with engine trouble in Stage 8, lost a further 20 minutes overall.
For Rodrigues, this was a welcome change of fortune after the Stage 6 winner lost more than three hours on a disastrous journey to Iquique 24 hours earlier that knocked him out of title contention.
As for Coma, victory in Buenos Aires on Saturday is still a long way away.
“At the moment, everything is still far off, so we're looking at the next day only and we will see. There's a long way still in front of us, so we'll take it step by step,” he said.
Leading lady Laia Sanz finished 12th for the day, moving up another place to eighth overall while, despite battles with fesh-fesh and elusive waypoints, the only South African still running on two wheels, Capetonian Albert Hintenaus, had his best day on the Dakar so far, finishing the stage 53rd and moving up a place to 50th overall.
Wednesday's 10th stage is a 358km timed run from Calam across the Argentine border to Salta.
AFP