Today Alain Duclos showed again a great performance and had the 6th best time of today's stage. That means that Duclos is now 5th in the overall standings. His team mates Frank Verhoestraete and Philippe Peillon navigated also very well through the desert. Frank Verhoestraete is with 1h08''37' behind the leader Cyril Depres and is 26th. The 'Congolais' Philippe Peillon is today 66th!
Frenchman Cyril Despres (KTM) has grabbed his first stage victory on this 32nd edition of the Dakar and the 19th of his career. More importantly, with a time of 3.01:09, respectively 10’40 and 12’09 ahead of Portugal’s Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha) and Paulo Goncalves (BMW), the adoptive Andorran has already improved his chances of outright victory, because at the same time his main rivals Spaniard Marc Coma and Frenchmen David Casteu and David Frétigné all encountered problems.
Bikes
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Start 05:00 - Arrival 08:45 |
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Start 08:45 - Arrival 11:15 |
| Total : 341 km |
(-3 h G.T.M) |
The white pit
It’ll be on the third real day of racing that the competitors will have to deal with a first test. The change of context will be radical: with a switch from earth to sand and especially a dune portion of close to 30 kilometres. Other than their dimension that suits perfectly a first part of rally, these dunes are noticeable thanks to their white colour. In this new landscape, the crews will enjoy off-piste. They will also have to adapt to a change of climate and especially sand storms that are frequent in the area.
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