Day 6 - Leading BMW Gone From the Event!
Apparently the Dakar leading BMW X3 of Nasser Al-Attiyah was suffering overheating problems at the end of Day 5. Despite attempts to cure the problem during the overnight stop, the overheating re-appeared early on Day 6 (Thursday). Al-Attiyah and his navigator, Sweden's Tina Thoerner (not the singer Tina Turner), chose to leave the route that was strewn with sand dunes and drive a longer, but easier route to the stage finish. This was strictly against the rules and the team was disqualified from the event.
Factory VW Touaregs were the top three finishers of the stage (De Villiers, Miller, and Sainz) and now hold the top three positions for the overall event (De Villiers, Sainz and Miller). Robby Gordon's Hummer was 8th on Thursday, 32 minutes slower than De Villiers, and is now 6th overall. This leaves Orlando Terranova (8th overall) and Dutchman Rene Kuipers (9th overall) as the best BMWs. Guerlain Chicherit only placed 49th on today's stage and is now 25th overall.
Another favorite for the overall win, Frenchman Luc Alphand (Mitsubishi) has dropped out of the event due to his navigator's illness. Alphand is an ex-World Cup Skiing champion.
Race Day 10 - Leading BMW Out, Day 11 Cancelled
The scheduled special stage of 416-miles was shortened to 295-miles as fog held up the start for several hours. Helicopters, which carry the Dakar officials and emergency medical personnel, are necessary for the safe conduct of the event. I guess "safe" is a relative term when talking about the Dakar. Today's route started and ended in the Chilean town of Copiapo, making a big loop through the Atacama Desert. They say it hasn't rained there for 3-years.
After 5 1/2 hours of racing, Carlos Sainz (VW) won his fifth stage of the Dakar, but only 21-seconds faster than Robby Gordon (Hummer). I understand the Hummer is using the same V-8 engine as the American Le Mans Series Corvettes. American Mark Miller's VW was 3rd followed by the BMW X3 of Guerlain Chicherit. Argentine Orlando Terranova, with the leading BMW after yesterday's stage, had the fastest time through the first two checkpoints, but had a bad rollover 110 miles into the stage. Neither the driver nor navigator, Alain Guehennec (France) were seriously injured, but the X3 was determined to be too damaged to be towed in and fixed.
This leaves Rene Kuiper's X3 as the leading BMW in the overall standings. He is 8th, over 2 hours behind the 7th place car. Chicherit is now 13th after being 168th at the end of Day 1.
It has just been announced that tomorrow's stage 11 has been cancelled due to the forecast fog. The competitors will caravan as a group from Copiapo across the Andes to Fiambalo, Argentina.
Race Day 12 - El Matador is out!
After yesterday's cancelled stage, the Dakar picked up with a short, but very difficult timed stage of 157-miles through white sand dunes. The competitors then had a 262-mile transit to the town of La Rioja. The big news is the retirement of Spainard Carlos Sainz. The ex-World Rally Championship star had his Volkswagen Touareg fall into a ravine and his navigator, Frenchman Michel Perin, suffered an injured shoulder. Sainz had a 27-minute lead at the start of the day and it was expected that he would drive convervatively to avoid this type of incident. Also, the sole remaining factory Mitsubishi of Spainard Nani Roma was stopped part way through the stage with mechanical ills. Roma was in 4th overall at the start of the day.
The stage was won by Giniel De Villiers (VW) by 16 minutes over team mate Mark Miller (VW), and Robby Gordon (Hummer) was a further 9 minutes back in 3rd. These three are now in the same positions in the overall standings. Fourth today was Dieter Depping (VW), followed by Leonoid Novitskiy (BMW). They are now 6th and 8th overall. Guerlain Chicherit (BMW) was 10th today and is now 9th overall.
Friday morning update: Nani Roma came in 7 hours after the leader and that dropped him to 6th overall. This drops the BMWs of Novitskiy and Chicherit to 9th and 11th overall.
Race Day 14 - The Last Stage
Today's final stage of 492-miles had a relatively short timed section of 141-miles over some of the dirt roads used on the Argentine round of the World Rally Championship. In contrast to the other special stages, the first 24 cars all finished within 20 minutes of the winning VW Touareg of Giniel De Villers (South Africa). Second place today was Leonoid Novitskiy in his BMW X3, only two seconds slower than De Villiers. Guerlain Chicherit's BMW was fifth, followed by Mark Miller (VW) and Rene Kuipers (BMW). Robby Gordon was 23rd, 19 minutues behind due to the need to change a flat tire.
This did not affect the final overall standings which saw the only two Americans in the starting field of 195 finish 2nd and 3rd. Two BMWs made the top 10, but a couple of non-finishing BMWs (Al-Attiyah and Terranova) impressed with their speed on several stages.
In all, 90 cars finished the event. De Villiers total race time over 13 stages was 48-hours and 10-minutes. That was over 17 hours less than the 10th place car.
Unofficial final standings (cars):
Pos. N° Name Make Time Variation Penalty
1 305 DE VILLIERS (ZAF)
VON ZITZEWITZ (DEU) VOLKSWAGEN 48:10:57 00:00:00
2 308 MILLER (USA)
PITCHFORD (ZAF) VOLKSWAGEN 48:19:56 00:08:59
3 309 GORDON (USA)
GRIDER (USA) HUMMER 49:57:12 01:46:15
4 327 TOLLEFSEN (NOR)
EVANS (GBR) NISSAN 54:15:31 06:04:34
5 317 HOLOWCZYC (POL)
FORTIN (BEL) NISSAN 54:48:46 06:37:49
6 307 DEPPING (DEU)
GOTTSCHALK (DEU) VOLKSWAGEN 56:54:26 08:43:29
7 340 ZAPLETAL (CZE)
OUREDNICEK (CZE) MITSUBISHI 59:14:05 11:03:08
8 316 NOVITSKIY (RUS)
TYUPENKIN (RUS) BMW 61:26:10 13:15:13
9 306 CHICHERIT (FRA)
BAUMEL (FRA) BMW 63:00:46 14:49:49 02:00:00
10 304 ROMA (ESP)
CRUZ SENRA (ESP) MITSUBISHI 65:38:43 17:27:46