Giniel hangs tough for Dakar finale

Published Jan 16, 2015

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Rio Hondo, Argentina - Qatari driver Nasser Al-Attiyah continued his dominance of the Dakar Rally on Thursday as he won his fifth car stage and closed in on a second success after his maiden win in 2011.

The 44-year-old, who won an Olympic bronze in skeet shooting at the 2012 London Games, drove his Mini to a 27sec win over team-mate Orlando Terranova, on the 520km route, of which 194km was timed from Salta to Termas de Rio Hondo.

It was the 10th win in 11 stages for Mini which now stands on the brink of a fourth success in the gruelling annual event.

Al-Attiyah now holds an overall lead of nearly 30 minutes on De Villiers with two days to go to the finish at Buenos Aires where the race began.

“I'm quite happy today just to finish the stage,” he said. “It was 194km of very fast tracks, like a world rally championship stage with a lot of spectators.

“We opened the road and that meant we had a good base and we didn't push a lot. We're just trying to keep it like this. It's very hard the Dakar because when we started on the second day it was not easy until today.

“Now we'll try to bring everything back to Buenos Aires and to win this Dakar. You need to be careful even until the podium. When you finish the Dakar, it's only finished after the podium.”

Works Toyota Hilux driver Giniel de Villiers was third, 39 seconds back.

"It was a good stage for us, but it was just too short to make up any time on Nasser," said De Villiers from the riverside town of Termas de Rio Hondo.

"And with only two stages to go, we just have to make sure we don't take any risks. At this point we can't catch Nasser on pure pace - all we can do is consolidate and with a bit of luck, the win might still come our way."

DISAPPOINTMENT

For his works Toyota team-mate Leeroy Poulter, it was a frustrating day; he pair finished ahead of De Villiers on Stage 10, which meant that he started Stage 11 ahead of their team-mate on the road.

"This morning team principal Glyn Hall asked us to support Giniel," explained Poulter. "We pulled away ahead of them on the stage, but then stopped to let them by.

"It cost us more than three minutes, and even though we had a clean stage after that, we still posted only the 16th fastest time today."

But the biggest disappointment of the day was the demise of Saudi privateer Yazeed Al-Rahji, taking part in his first Dakar, in a South-African built Hilux bakkie identical to the two works machines of De Villiers and Poulter.

Al-Rahji had not only posted competitive stage times throughout the race, but even won Stage 8 outright - despite never having driven the Hilux before the start of the Dakar.

"Yazeed was third overall and looking good for a podium finish on his first Dakar," explained Hall. "But an electronic problem related to the speed limiter system, which is used to stop the cars from exceeding the limits imposed by the race organisers, caused irreparable damage to their engine.

 "We tried very hard to fix it at a road-side service this morning, but we just couldn't get it done and Yazeed had to withdraw."

For Johan van Staden in the ProDakar Navara, however, everything just kept going better, as he came in 29th - his best stage result yet - less than 10 minutes off the pace, and moved up another place to 31st overall.

Defending champion Nani Roma of Spain was unable to start the stage although his chance of winning the race was already gone after his huge crash on Stage 10.

MOTORCYCLES

Joan Barreda Bort rode his Honda to a second consecutive stage win and fourth overall while standings leader Marc Coma comfortably protected his advantage with two days to go.

The riders raced across 523km, of which 298km was time), over fast terrain to Termas de Rio Hondo as KTM rider Coma coasted home in sixth place with the knowledge that his closest rival Paulo Goncalves (Honda) had been penalised 15 minutes on Wednesday for changing his engine.

Coma said: “We've managed to get through it but it's always stressful when you have to work on the bike, but everything is OK.

“There is still a difficult day to complete on Friday then again on Saturday. I'm not thinking about the finish yet. We'll see, because there are still a fair few kilometres to go, but for the moment I'm happy”.

Portugal's Goncalves finished second behind Barreda Bort, who followed on from his stage win on Wednesday, but now trails Spain's Coma by nearly 20 minutes with Australian Toby Price (KTM) third, more than 31 minutes in arrears.

It was Barreda Bort’s 14th career stage win he and would have been higher up the rankings had he not lost more than four hours with mechanical problems on the stage to Chile's Pacific Coast on Monday. 

Lone South African motorcycle survivor Albert Hintenaus had his best day by far on this year's Dakar, cracking the top 40 for the first time and bringing his KTM home 43 minutes behind the leaders, to move another place in the standings to 43rd overall.

Coma's KTM team is now just two days from the finish in Buenos Aires and a 14th consecutive triumph in the gruelling event.

AFP

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