The category of cars today, was in charge of opening track, which has played in favour of the strategy taken by Peugeot in the opening stage of the Dakar. The French Cyril Despres has scored the victory: “I did Not expect a special as well. I am very glad not to have suffered any setback. There has been big dunes that were difficult to overcome, and then plains to be very soft. We’ve seen unemployed for many pilots. David Castera has guided me very well, without any failure or sospresas unpleasant“.
Another great benefit from the hardness of the second stage and for the demanding work of navigation has been Stéphane Peterhansel: “We have overtaken a few cars and we’ve also seen some accidents such as that of Menzies, I think that has wrecked his buggy. Alvarez also had a dump in the dunes. We have tried to make the navigation out clean, but it was not very easy. We be in the ointment. Yesterday it was a boot a bit hard and disturbing”.
Sébastien Loeb has closed the triplet of Peugeot in the special: “The day today has been better than yesterday. We had to turn around two or three times to find the way-points. The idea was to get a time that was not catastrophic and do not open the track tomorrow. When you let yourself be carried away by the drawn, at the end you realize that something is wrong. Our goal is to leave Peru without leaving very scalded“.
On the opposite side of the coin, Nasser Al-Attiyah has suffered opening track: “it’s Not been easy. After fifteen kilometres, Matthieu has been very sick. So we had to be cautious. in The end, we are happy to be where we are and tomorrow, perhaps, do a better career. If we start in a good position, there will be no problems”.
In the motorcycle category, Joan Barreda has scored the victory and is the new leader: “The first part had a lot of dunes and, at the jump of a, I am resentful of the injury of the hand. We will try with the physio to improve the hand tomorrow. There have been a couple of sites with a little bit of confusion. we Know that the first days are not going to be easy until we find the rhythm. The goal is to stay in the group ahead of us and days go by”.
The day has been very positive for Honda, as recognized by Michael Metge: “in Front of our cars have done a lot of ruts and it was difficult to climb the big dunes. Despite this I have been quite comfortable, and I’ve tried to make sure that I was going down the track good. This result is very good, but the Dakar is very long”.
The chilean Ignacio Casale has achieved his second win of stage: “It’s a struggle interesting with Sergei. Today was an incredible stage. The I enjoyed very much, even though I’m taking care of the engine. I’m very happy because I’m calm, without risk and at a pace that has me quite correct and allows me to earn”.
The other member of this duel, Sergei Karjakin, has also been fairly cautious: “I feel very good with my pace and I really enjoyed it on the dunes. Seemed like a roller coaster, not we would stop up and down. When you find the rhythm, you can go very fast in this type of dunes. We have seen many cars stopped by the road. This is the second day, so it’s not worth attacking. What concerns me most is knowing how to measure forces and keep the concentration”.
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