Dakar 2011: Leg 1

End of SS1: Victoria-Cordoba Cars/Trucks: 222Kms Bikes/Quads: 192Kms

Carlos Sainz has gotten his 2011 Dakar Rally campaign off to a flying start by winning the first competitive stage of the rally. Sainz finished 1 min 31 secs ahead of BMW driver Stéphane Peterhansel. Another VW driver, Nasser Al-Attiyah holds third, a further 2 mins 26 secs behind Sainz.

The competition proper got underway this morning with all the crews onboard the cars and trucks facing 222Kms of racing while the bikes and quads made a detour which was designed to limit the amount of overtaking on the narrow roads. The detour shortening the bikes and quads stage down to 192Kms.

Sainz started the stage in clear and dry conditions, but these conditions were replaced with rain in the middle of the stage, leaving the road muddy and slippery. The stage resembled a traditional WRC stage, which Sainz would have been used to, having spent 19 years in the WRC. Al-Attiyah and Krzysztof Holowczyk, both having WRC experience, benefited from the stage’s resemblance, coming home third and sixth, respectively.

Sainz lead the entire 222Km stage, driving quickly and skilfully to lead home Peterhansel and Al-Attiyah. Sainz’ and Al-Attiyah’s team-mates Ginnel de Villiers and Mark Miller finished the stage in fifth and fourth positions, respectively. Holowczyk and Argentinean driver Orlando Terranova came in sixth and seventh.

Robbie Gordon made sure this year that he would be easily spotted should he go off course by having his Hummer H3 painted in fluorescent orange. He finished eighth. Guilherme Spinelli (Mitsubishi Lancer Racing) and Leonid Novitskiy (BMW X3 CC) rounded out the Top 10 in the car classification. Guerlain Chicherit finished 77^th overall in the all-new Mini Countryman, a beefed-up version of the equally all-new Countryman WRC.

To the truck class now and the Kamaz crew of Vladimir Chagin, Sergey Savostin and Ildar Shaysultanov hold a 4 min 41 sec lead over the all-Czech Tatra team of Ales Loprais, Milan Holan and Josef Kalina. A further 5 min and 52 secs behind are another Kamaz crew, this time an all-Russian crew, with Firdaus Kabirov, Aydar Belyaev and Andrey Mokeev. The Top 10 crews in the truck class are separated by over 20 mins.

In the bikes section, Cyril Despres leads the rally by 31 secs over Ruben Faria with last year’s winner Marc Coma in third. All three are on the factory KTM 450 Rally. Faria was fastest over the stage by 29 secs from Despres but lost his lead when he was handed a 1 min penalty by the officials, dropping him to second. Fourth, fifth and sixth are Juan Pedrero Garcia, Paulo Goncalves and Jonah Street. With the top three riders only separated by 46 secs, it could prove to be an interesting rally.

Joesf Machacek leads the quads section of the rally with 1 min 6 secs in hand over fellow Czech rider Martin Plechaty in second. Argentinean rider Sebastian Halpern is third, just over three mins behind leader Machacek. Yamaha riders hold the first 10 places, so it looks to be a good rally for the Japanese firm.

Full results from all the classes can be found on www.dakar.com