Archive for Dakar
Volkswagen defended its lead on the eleventh of the 14 stages in the Dakar Rally: The three Volkswagen Race Touareg cars continue to lead the overall standings after the second Andes crossing from Chile to Argentina. The name of the potential winner still remains wide open: The leaders Carlos Sainz/Lucas Cruz (E/E) lost 5 minutes 38 seconds of their lead to Nasser Al-Attiyah/Timo Gottschalk (Q/D) and Mark Miller/Ralph Pitchford (USA/ZA). The closest rivals – Stéphane Peterhansel/Jean-Paul Cottret (F/F) in an X-raid BMW – are already 2 hours 9 minutes behind the leader in fourth place. Sainz was forced to accept a setback on the descent of the Andes from an altitude of around 3,000 meters: Read More→
Team X-raid’s Guerlain Chicherit and Tina Thörner produced a stunning performance to take the fastest time on the 11th stage of the 2010 Dakar Rally between Santiago in Chile and San Juan in Argentina on Wednesday afternoon. The BMW X3 CC crew began the special fifth on the road and in a similar position in the overall standings and managed to finish 30 seconds in front of Argentina’s Orlando Terranova to consolidate their position in the main rankings. The success marked a first stage win for the reigning FIA World Cup champions on this Dakar and Chicherit’s second ever – he and co-driver Matthieu Baumel won the special between Tambacounda and Dakar in 2006. “The stage was short and I was given the go-ahead to push as long as I kept the car on the road,” said Chicherit. “So I said to Tina that the stage was for us. I attacked from the start, but we had trouble getting past Nasser (Al-Attiyah). This year I have really found my strengths and my weaknesses and I am going to work on coming back stronger than ever next time.” Read More→
Nasser Al-Attiyah moved within five minutes of Dakar Rally leader Carlos Sainz while Guerlain Chicherit won the 11th stage as the race moved into Argentina. Qatari Al-Attiyah (+1:41) finished fourth, also behind Argentine Mitsubishi driver Orlando Terranova and fellow Volkswagen man Giniel de Villiers, on the 220km special stage between Santiago and San Juan. French BMW X-Raid driver Chicherit won in two hours, 34 minutes, 51 seconds while VW’s Sainz finished ninth, 7:19 behind him. Read More→
Team X-raid Stéphane Peterhansel and Guerlain Chicherit maintained fourth and fifth positions in the overall standings after the relatively straightforward 10th stage of the 2010 Dakar Rally between La Serena and Santiago in Chile on Tuesday. Peterhansel and co-driver Jean-Paul Cottret finished the last Chilean stage of this year’s Dakar in second position to pull a further 2m 04s away from their fifth-placed team mates, Guerlain Chicherit and Tina Thörner, in the overall classification. Russia’s Leonid Novitskiy and German co-driver Andreas Schulz began the day in ninth overall. They were delayed and came under pressure from a hard-charging Robbie Gordon and Orlando Terranova and the 14th fastest time meant that they ceded two places in the overall rankings and reached the Chilean capital in 11th overall. Read More→
The Spaniards Carlos Sainz/Lucas Cruz (E/E) increased their lead over their two team mates in the overall standings following the duo’s first stage victory and Volkswagen’s fifth so far this year in the 2010 Dakar Rally. Nasser Al-Attiyah/Timo Gottschalk (Q/D) are now second 10 minutes 6 seconds behind the leaders, Mark Miller/Ralph Pitchford (USA/ZA) in the third Race Touareg trail the leaders by a margin of 28 minutes 19 seconds. The former Rally World Champion Sainz was completely in his element along the small mountain passes from La Serena to Santiago. Stony tracks, tight corners and many braking maneuvers – the demands were rather more reminiscent of a rally world championship than a desert rally. Read More→
Volkswagen claim first three positions on stage, three “Blues” head overall standings: The TDI diesel powered Race Touareg continued to set the benchmark on the ninth of the 14-day long 2010 Dakar Rally. Nasser Al-Attiyah and Timo Gottschalk (Q/D) claimed the day’s victory on the route between Copiapó and La Serena in Chile ahead of their team mates Carlos Sainz/Lucas Cruz (E/E) and Giniel de Villiers/Dirk von Zitzewitz (ZA/D). Mark Miller/Ralph Pitchford (USA/ZA) recorded the fifth fastest time in another Race Touareg behind the French X-raid driver Guerlain Chicherit in a BMW. Carlos Sainz continues to lead the overall standings from Nasser Al-Attiyah and Mark Miller. Al-Attiyah reduced his deficit to the leader by six minutes to only 8 minutes 36 seconds. Read More→
Team X-raid Stéphane Peterhansel managed to overtake team-mate Guerlain Chicherit in the overall standings of the 2010 Dakar Rally, after the ninth 472km special stage between Antofagasta and Copiapó in Chile on Sunday. The Frenchman and co-driver Jean-Paul Cottret recorded the fastest time to move into fourth position at the expense of Chicherit and Tina Thörner, who led the stage early on before collecting a puncture. Peterhansel’s 54th Dakar stage win and his 21st in a car means that he stays ahead of Russia’s Vladimir Tchaguine in the Dakar ‘hall of fame’ for the competitor with the most stage wins in the 32-year history of the world’s most famous off-road rally. “This was a very difficult stage and we had to drive so carefully on the rocks to avoid problems,” said Peterhansel. “There was also a lot of navigation. The dunes at the end were not easy to pass, especially because we did not stop to deflate the tyres. We know that we are too far back to take the win, but it is nice to win the special stage and we did the best we could.” Read More→
Team X-raid GmbH will use Saturday’s rest day of the 2010 Dakar Rally in Antofagasta to ensure that the whole team is prepared and sufficiently relaxed in preparation for the next seven special stages, which will take the event to a finish in Buenos Aires next weekend. Guerlain Chicherit, Stéphane Peterhansel, Leonid Novitskiy and their respective co-drivers, Tina Thörner, Jean-Paul Cottret and Andreas Schulz hold fourth, fifth and ninth in the overall rankings after a first week of mixed fortunes for the Trebur-based team. “Things went great yesterday,” said Chicherit. “We drove at a good pace. I had intended to attack. I wanted to set a good time, but it did not really work out the way we expected. We had two flat tyres. Then we ended up in the dust of Giniel (de Villiers) and we had a hard time getting close to him to pass. “We drove almost 100km behind him. Apart from that all was fine. We are climbing back up the overall standings. There were big decisions to make in terms of navigation, but we were okay and it is looking good for next week.” Read More→
Team X-raid GmbH’s Guerlain Chicherit and Stéphane Peterhansel moved up to an unofficial fourth and fifth in the overall standings after the longest stage of the entire 2010 Dakar Rally, a 600km special between Iquique and Antofagasta in Chile, on Friday. Former leader Peterhansel and Chicherit set the second and fifth fastest times on the varied special and benefited from delays for Carlos Sousa, Krzysztof Holowczyc and Robbie Gordon to move up the leader board heading into Saturday’s rest day at Antofagasta. It was a second successive superb performance by Peterhansel after he had lost two hours on stage five with transmission problems. Russia’s Leonid Novitskiy and German co-driver Andreas Schulz were delayed after the 355km point in the third BMW X3 CC. They were running seventh on the stage through the 509km point and heading towards the finish in Antofagasta and on course to remain well inside the top 10. Read More→
