Peterhansel begins Dakar recovery, Roma still leads

Autosport

Nani Roma maintained his Dakar Rally lead as the event reached its halfway point, but his X-raid Mini team-mate Stephane Peterhansel commenced a comeback charge.

After a troubled first week, Peterhansel was 40 minutes adrift of leader Roma at the end of Thursday’s fifth stage.

A record-equalling 63rd stage win on Friday’s run from Tucuman to Salta allowed Peterhansel to carve six minutes out of the gap to the front, however.

Peterhansel is now back to third place, still 33 minutes behind Roma – who was only sixth quickest on stage six – but just under three minutes away from second-place Orlando Terranova in another Mini.

Nasser Al-Attiyah and Carlos Sainz’s Thursday penalties have left them fifth and sixth overall, behind Giniel de Villiers.

Al-Attiyah was second to Peterhansel on Friday with a time 2m43s slower.

The rally now pauses for its traditional halfway rest day before resuming on Sunday.

Leading stage six times:

Pos  Driver                Team/Car          Time/Gap
 1.  Stephane Peterhansel  X-raid Mini       2h42m58s
 2.  Nasser Al-Attiyah     X-raid Mini         +2m43s
 3.  Orlando Terranova     X-raid Mini         +5m20s
 4.  Giniel de Villiers    Imperial Toyota     +6m06s
 5.  Carlos Sainz          SMG Buggy           +6m31s
 6.  Nani Roma             X-raid Mini         +6m36s
 7.  Vladimir Vasilyev     X-raid Mini        +12m02s
 8.  Krzysztof Holowczyc   X-raid Mini        +12m34s
 9.  Federico Villagra     X-raid Mini        +12m53s
10.  Christian Lavieille   Haval              +13m01s

Leading overall positions after stage six:

Pos  Driver                Team/Car          Time/Gap
 1.  Nani Roma             X-raid Mini      22h11m28s
 2.  Orlando Terranova     X-raid Mini        +30m30s
 3.  Stephane Peterhansel  X-raid Mini        +33m23s
 4.  Giniel de Villiers    Imperial Toyota    +40m54s
 5.  Nasser Al-Attiyah     X-raid Mini      +1h22m35s
 6.  Carlos Sainz          SMG Buggy        +1h59m38s
 7.  Marek Dabrowski       Orlen Toyota     +1h59m39s
 8.  Pascal Thomasse       MD Buggy         +2h21m08s
 9.  Krzysztof Holowczyc   X-raid Mini      +2h28m57s
10.  Adam Malysz           Orlen Toyota     +2h43m13s

Peterhansel begins Dakar recovery, Roma still leads

  • Autosport
    About The Author
    -

    sixteen − 3 =

    You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>