Dakar 2011: Leg 4

End of SS4: San Salvador de Jujuy-Calama Cars/Trucks: 207Kms Bikes/Quads: 207Kms

Carlos Sainz has brought his Dakar Rally stage wins up to 20 after winning today’s stage. The Spaniard looks to be driving towards his second successive Dakar title, but its only early days yet. He won the stage by 50 secs ahead of team-mate Nasser Al-Attiyah, to extend his lead to 4 mins 24 secs. Stéphane Peterhansel is still third, 5 mins 41 secs behind the flying Sainz.

With today’s mileage down to 207Kms from yesterday’s mammoth 500Kms, Al-Attiyah had the honour of leading the crews into the stage, but with Sainz in hot pursuit. For the first time this rally, the bikes and quads ran the exact same route as the cars and trucks.

As the entire field moves into the Atacama Desert, the weather is staying hot. The Atacama Desert is the driest desert on earth, having never rained there. The extreme heat, and the problem of having to drive over soft sand, is sure to test the drivers and riders. The appearance of the sand dunes are sure to aid Peterhansel, who is chasing his third Dakar Rally win onboard the cars, and his tenth Dakar Rally win in all classes (the Frenchman has taken six wins in the bike class).

Sainz won his third stage of the 2011 Dakar Rally, which took his overall Dakar stage wins tally up to 20. He took the win by 50 secs over Al-Attiyah, with Peterhansel third, 1 min 22 secs off Sainz fastest time. The Top 3 drivers are still Sainz, Al-Attiyah and Peterhansel. The gap between to second now stands at 4 mins 24 secs, and the gap to third is now at 5 mins 41 secs.

The other VW drivers are now beginning to pick up speed. Ginnel de Villiers is still in fourth place, and still nearly 15 mins off third place, but is near enough to Peterhansel to capitalise on any mistakes made by the Frenchman. Mark Miller is now tenth, but is well over an hour behind his leading team mate, so all hopes of his first Dakar win are nearly gone, however, as we have seen during recent Dakar rallies, anything can happen.

The rest of the Top 10 remains the same as yesterday, save for Mark Miller overhauling Christian Lavieille for tenth. Miller is now only 4 secs behind ninth placed Nani Roma, but Roma is almost 10 mins behind Guilherme Spinelli, who is eighth.

MINI driver Guerlain Chicherit is 14^th, 1hr 27 mins behind leader Sainz. His time over SS4 was 4 mins 38 secs slower than Sainz, but it was still good enough for seventh place on the stage. The Frenchman is happy with the way the new car is performing, and is happy that the brake problems that dogged him on Sunday have disappeared.

“It was cool. We drove a great special with no mistakes. We didn’t push that hard and we really enjoyed the driving. During the last three stages we had problems with the brakes and I was hoping they would work today, and fortunately that was the case. Today, we weren’t concerned about the time. We just wanted to drive and get back into the rhythm without worrying about the rest. The car seems to be working well. There’s still a long way to go.” he said.

Robbie Gordon has been forced to retire his fluorescent orange Hummer H3 from the rally after serious mechanical damage halted his charge. He managed to get through the Paso de Jama pass, but the car never made it to the start of the stage.

Trucks now and the Chagin/Savostin/Shaysultanov team continue to lead the class after again putting in fastest time by 2 mins 18 secs over the Kabirov/Belyaev/Mokeev team, who move back up to second. The Loprais/Holan/Kalina team now fall back to third after losing nearly 6 mins on the stage to the leaders. The gap to second now stands at 8 mins 18 secs, with the third placed crew now 12 mins 36 secs off the leading truck.

On two wheels, Marc Coma now leads Cyril Despres with Francisco Lopez Contardo in third. Coma originally beat Despres over the stage by a slender 16 secs. However, afterwards, Despres was hit with a mammoth 10 min penalty. Lopez Contardo was then boosted up to second, 2 mins 5 secs behind Coma. In the overall table, Coma leads and Despres is now second, but is 10 mins 2 secs in arrears. Now third is Lopez Contardo, who is over 20 mins behind Coma.

In the quad section, Tomas Maffei now leads by 1 min 54 secs, even though he was given a 1 min penalty, over Alejandro Patronelli, who is second. 3 mins further back is former leader Sebastian Halpern, in third. The Top 3 are quite secure, with fourth placed Martin Plechaty over 24 mins off third. Jorge Santamarina’s charge to break the Yamaha hold on the Top 6 places took a hard blow when he was given a 5 min penalty.

Also, as it is truck category leader Vladimir Chagin’s birthday, I would like to wish him a Happy Birthday. For a nice present, he scored fastest truck time over today’s stage.