The seventh stage of the Dakar rally between La Paz and Uyuni has been a witness of one of the key moments of the 40th edition of the test. However, while Carlos Sainz has added his second stage win to be leader of the car category, his team-mate Stéphane Peterhansel has suffered the bitter side of the career after giving 1:47:56 hours with the Spanish driver hit a rock while trying to overtake one of the pilots of the category of quad that I was standing. Ton Van Genugten has taken the victory between the trucks in the doublet of Iveco.
Cars
The so elusive fortune has been put on the side of Carlos Sainz in the seventh stage of the Dakar, not by the performance of the Spanish rider, but for the problems he has had your mate and main rival, Stephane Peterhansel. However, Carlos Sainz has added his second triumph of stage after the completion of the special between La Paz and Uyuni in a time of 4:29:26 hours. This record has been exceeded by 12:05 minutes to Giniel de Villiers. Meanwhile, Stéphane Peterhansel lost a large part of their chances to win, after hitting a rock when attempting to overtake a quad stopped.
The hardness of the Dakar have wished that Peugeot, which started out with four riders ready to fight for the victory, you have only to Carlos Sainz at the front of the race. The last fall has been Stéphane Peterhansel, the frenchman hit a rock at mile 186 of the special. Fruit of the strong accident, the Peugeot 3008 DKR Maxi Peterhansel suffered damage to the suspension and the rear wheel left. ‘Mr. Dakar’ had to be detained for 1 hour and 45 minutes to Cyril Despres -that came with problems of clutch – I got to disassemble the triangle of suspension of your own car for he ceased to his team-mate. Peterhansel reached the finish with 1:47:56 hours lost.
With the results that have been given in the stage today, the first part of the marathon stage, in which the Toyota Hilux of Giniel de Villiers and Nasser Al-Attiyah completed the podium part, the category suffers a real rollover. With seven days ahead, Carlos Sainz is the new leader with an advantage of 1:11:19 hours over Nasser Al-Attiyah, while Stephane Peterhansel took the third place with 1:20:46 hours lost. In times almost identical to the cumulative of the frenchman move Giniel de Villiers and Bernhard Ten Brinke to complete the ‘top 5’ category.
Trucks
Ton Van Genugten has scored the victory in the truck category in a stage that, for the ‘elephants in the desert’, has been slightly shorter than for the other categories. In this aspect, Van Genugten has achieved the triumph after completing the special in 4:10:40 hours, rrecording that has led to overcome for 2:01 minutes to Federico Villagra. In spite of the doublet of the drivers of the Iveco De Rooy, the general has hardly changed since Eduard Nikolaev has only yielded 4:54 minutes behind the stage winner. The Russian still has 49:47 minutes of advantage in the general.
In fact, the seventh stage of the Dakar has only just left the very small differences among the riders pointers, as it shows that the Czech Martin Kolomy and Martin Macik have completed the ‘top 5’ of the category after completing the timed section, separated by a mere 22 seconds and six minutes from the time of reference. For his part, Siarhei Viazovich was the sixth ranked of the day, in a result that has served to minimize damages in respect of Martin Macik after the enactment of 20 minutes has been imposed on the driver of MAZ.
–