Al-Attiyah closes on Sainz
January 14, 2010 by ProMotor
Two punctures slowed overall leaders Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz on stage 11 of the Dakar Rally on Wednesday, with the Spanish pair finishing the 220 km special between Santiago and San Juan in ninth place, 7m 19s behin! d the winning BMW X3 of Frenchman Guerlain Chicherit and Swede Tina Thorner.
Second was the Mitsubishi Lancer of Argentina’s Orlando Terranova, 30 seconds behind Chicherit and just nine seconds quicker than South Africa’s Giniel de Villiers and German co-driver Dirk von Zitzewitz in the first Volkswagen Race Touareg.
Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah finished fourth in his Race Touareg and closed to 4m 28s seconds of overall race leader Sainz. Team-mates Mark Miller of America and South African Ralph Pitchford were fifth, 2m 50s behind Chicherit. They retain their third place overall and are now 19m 22s behind Al-Attiyah and 1h 46m 03s ahead of France’s Stephane Peterhansel and Jean-Paul Cottret BMW X3).
Chicherit is still fifth overall, 2h 23m 40s behind Sainz with defending Dakar champion De Villiers seventh and a further 45m 21s behind sixth-placed Carlos Sousa of Portugal (Mitsubishi Lancer).
Today’s stage was similar to yesterday’s, with fast, winding tracks and mostly downhill. The battle for overall honours between Sainz and Al-Attiyah has intensified and the Qatari was able to more than halve the gap to his team-mate. Both hit trees in heavy dust while closely following another competitor and were fortunate not to crash.
“We had a good, clean run today and were able to close the gap to sixth-placed Sousa by nearly seven minutes,” said De Villiers. &! ldquo;It was a very narrow stage that included the long crossing of a dry riverbed and also some water splashes. There were lots of opportunities to pick up a puncture, but we managed to avoid this. Starting so far back today (in 11th place) we lost loads of time stuck in other people’s dust. We set ourselves a target of fifth overall after our problems on stage three, but unless something happens to Sousa and Peterhansel in front of us we are going to have to settle for seventh.”
Pitchford reported another trouble-free day, but he and Miller have dropped back to 19m 22s behind team-mate Al-Attiyah with just three stages remaining.
Stage 12 on Thurs! day is from San Juan to San Rafael in Argentina and, at 476 km, is the ! third longest stage of the rally. The early part of the route is tracks cut by rios and surrounded by canyons and “fairy chimneys”. After some 200 km of special competitors will briefly use the road to avoid a protected natural site. The second part is exclusively sandy with many jumps.
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