First stage 2010 Dakar Roma BMW X-Raid victorious
The 2010 Dakar race through South America is on it’s way: Nani Roma won the first stage of the Dakar Rally from Colon to Cordoba. The Spanish x-raod BMW pilot finished the first special stage 2:07 minutes ahead of his closest competitor, Carlos Sainz in a Volkswagen Race Touareg. Record Dakar winner Stéphane Peterhansel, who like Roma, without a cockpit after the withdraw of Mitsubishi, joined the X-raid team, came with 2:50 minutes back as third to today’s stage finish. These three had a flat-out three-way battle right from the beginning. Fourth at the finish was VW newcomer Nasser Al-Attiyah. Last year’s winner Giniel de Villiers (VW) held back to the beginning of the stage, but then worked his way forward in the rankings and was fifth with 4:31 minutes behind. U.S. off-road star Robby Gordon found himself in a battle with Al-Attiyah for fourth place, but lost at the end of the stage some ground and slipped back behind de Villiers. Gordon missing 4:48 minutes on the fastest time.
Today’s first stage took a total of 684 kilometers from Colon to Cordoba. The special stage was supposed to go over 251 kilometers, but had to be shortened due to flooding at several river crossings. The organizers decided for safety reasons to launch the race at the 52-kilometer mark. The Sierra Pampeanas had today already the first mountain passages on the program. The course was similar to the first special stage of the WRC course. The road to the Sierra los Comechingon along was very curvy, driver’s had to put in a fair share of work on them.
Last year’s winner de Villiers started the first in the stage, but already at the first check point the South Africans has fallen back to 13th position. At the 75-kilometer mark was BMW X-raid driver Peterhansel in the lead, just three seconds ahead of his teammate Roma and with same distance followed by Volkswagen drivers Sainz. Behind them followed Al-Attiyah (VW) and Hummer pilot Robby Gordon. U.S. off-road star Gordon had a short time later, a “wake-up” call!. He missed with his Hummer H3 a curve and speed straight on into the grasslands of the Pampas. Gordon has been thoroughly shaken but lost only a few seconds. His Hummer was not damaged.
At the 104-kilometer mark Roma had taken the lead, just one second before Peterhansel and Sainz, Al-Attiyah and Gordon followed with nine respective 18 seconds behind. And the seconds duel went on: 138 kilometers down the track seen Roma in front, again only a second ahead of team mate Peterhansel and two seconds ahead of Sainz. Gordon had been overtaken Al-Attiyah and occupied fourth place.
After that Roma went “pedal to the metal”, the Spaniard was able to shake off his pursuers and never looked back. At the 190 kilometer mark the X-raid driver lead almost one and a half minutes to Sainz, Peterhansel was with a further 20 seconds behind third ahead of Al-Attiyah and Gordon. To the stage finish Roma had expanded his lead and drove toward the stage victory. Shortly before the finish he had 1:47 minutes ahead of Sainz who had a race going with Peterhansel
2010 Dakar Rally – positions on SS1 (unofficial @ 17.45 hrs):
- 1. Joan ‘Nani’ Roma (E)/Michel Périn (F) BMW X3 CC 2h 11m 15s
- 2. Carlos Sainz (E)/Lucas Cruz (E) VW Race Touareg 2h 13m 22s
- 3. Stéphane Peterhansel (F)/Jean-Paul Cottret (F) BMW X3 CC 2h 14m 05s
- 4. Nasser Al-Attiyah (QA)/T. Gottschalk (D) VW Race Touareg 2h 14m 44s
- 5. G. de Villiers (ZA)/D.v. Zitzewitz (D) VW Race Touareg 2h 15m 46s
- 6. Robbie Gordon (USA)/Andy Grider (USA) Hummer 2h 16m 03s
- 7. Krzysztof Holowczyc (PL)/Jean-Marc Fortin (B) Nissan Overdrive 2h 17m 22s
- 8. Mark Miller (USA)/Ralph Pitchford (ZA) VW Race Touareg 2h 17m 28s
- 9. Leonid Novitskiy (RUS)/Andreas Schulz (D) BMW X3 CC 2h 18m 17s
Check our 2010 Dakar Special Edition page for news, live tracking, latest videos, course map and more here…
Related posts:
- X-raid second and sixth fastest times on demanding stage
- Peterhansel’s 55th career Dakar stage win
- Exciting and enjoyable Dakar for Team X-Raid
- Joan “Nani” Roma victory for X-Raid
- Rest day of the 2010 Dakar Rally
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This post was compiled by Memin Pinguin
