Dakar - 2013 | Stage 9, Day 10 - [Tucuman-Cordoba]

Day 10 - Stage 9:

After the well deserved rest-day, yesterday, Dakar is back to finish the second half of its endurance rally, raid. Day's stage is much on the route of the WRC stages of Argentina, which normally happens in the mid-calendar-year time. The Bikers, Quad riders & Cars have almost the same route to tackle, starting from Tucuman, to end the day's rally in Cordoba, Argentina, with a total of 850+ km. Trucks have lesser and much straighter overall 700 km route from Tucuman to Cordoba.

Bikes & Quads

As usual, it was Bikers who started the day's 852 km journey, and action right from the start and it was Joan Barreda Bort turn today. Quad riders followed them, on an identical itinerary starting with 176 km of road section to reach Stage 9, and the Special Stage which is the longest running one with 593 km in length, and another 83 km of road section to end the day's rally in Cordoba, Argentina. The stage has a neutralized section from km 226 till 353.

Cyril Despres put up his best performance today, by gaining 4m3s over second placed Joan Barreda Bort in todays's rally & now sits in second overall, by 5m23s to Ruben Faria. It was a very bad day for Yamaha rider David Casteu, as he collided with a cow in the first section of the special and stopped more than once after the fall, but managed to finish down 1h50m10s and hence lost overall lead that he had until yesterday.

Lukasz Laskawiec won the Stage 9 in quads by 1m5s over Marcos Patronelli who is still the overall leader by 1h32m28s to the nearest competitor Casale.

Cars

The Cars have almost the same route as the riders to tackle today with just a kilometer less in the first transport, but similar later Special Stage 9, which is also the longest running one with 593 km in length, and another 83 km of road section to end the day's rally in Cordoba, Argentina. Like bike/quads a neutralized section starts from km 226 from start and ends at 353.

Guerlain Chicherit was the first one to leave Tucuman, as he is the winner of previous stage. De Villiers put up a good fight during today's stage, however, it was the Mini's that took the top spots today. Nani Roma & Stephane Peterhansel snatched 1st & 2nd, while Argentinian Orlando Terranova took third, Robby Gordon in fourth. Peterhansel extends his lead to more than 49mins overall cars.

Trucks

However, the trucks have about 324 km of transport to reach a different 293 km length of Special Stage and a similar 82 km of transport to finish at Parc Ferme in Cordoba.

Gerard De Rooy was the first Trucker to start, but his Iveco developed Turbo issues and lost more than 1h25m during the course of the day & finished in 59th. He slips from the overall leaderboard by almost an hour and currently sits in 4th. Russian Kamaz driver Nikoleav is the new rally leader. Czech, Tatra driver Ales Loprais won the Special-Stage-9 today.