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Dakar 2007 |
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132 bikes, 109 car teams and 69 trucks reached the capital city of Senegal and finished the 29th edition of the Dakar. The 15th and last stage was raced on the banks of Lac Rose after respecting a minute’s silence in memory of bikers Elmer Symons and Eric Aubijoux who both died during the rally. Janis Vinters, already a stage winner in Nema, gets the best time of the day in the bikes category whilst Giniel De Villiers adds a fourth stage victory to this year’s list. The last stage did not lead to any major change in the overall rankings: Cyril Despres wins his second Dakar on a bike, while Stéphane Peterhansel, with now three victories in a car, has a total of 9 Dakar victories. In trucks, there is a newcomer at the top: Hans Stacey, in a MAN truck, who put an end to the long series of Kamaz victories. OVERVIEW OF THE BIKES CATEGORY: Despres or why having faith pays off… The bike race was – for sure – a bumpy ride as the two favorites put on a great show as announced in the beginning of the race. But the second victory of Cyril Despres on the Dakar follows a series of more or less unforeseeable events. The heavy blow of Marc Coma on the moral of his adversaries in the first two stages in Morocco was rather logical. Dominating the whole rally season, the title holder was again demonstrating his talents as a pilot and authoritatively asserting his position as the man to beat. The Catalan seemed to be all the more unbeatable that Cyril Despres, twice the victim of a broken gearbox, was almost one hour being the leader. In the KTM Gauloises team, Isidre Esteve and David Casteu then took over from Despres to chase the world champion. But neither one actually manage to even get close to him, Esteve being also delayed by the defect identified in the gearboxes of the KTM 690 in the Atar – Tichit stage. Against this background, the efforts deployed by Cyril Despres to steel a few minutes a day to Marc Coma might have seemed vain, except if he hoped Coma would actually have to race for a whole special stage in first gear. It’s however not because of a mechanical problem that Coma had to withdraw. Two days from finish, just after entering Senegal, the leader made a mistake: a navigation error on km 35 of the Kayes – Tambacounda stage, a short period of fear or doubt lost in the forest more than 6 km away from the ideal route and the bike of the Spaniard somersaulted when hitting a stump. Coma himself slammed right into a tree. After having been taken care of by the rally doctors, Coma was finally declared out of danger but forced to withdraw from the rally. This withdrawal was profitable to Cyril Despres, whose misfortune in the 2007 edition will remind everyone of the fact that the Dakar is never over before arriving at Lac Rose. Behind two-times winner (2005 and 2007), David Casteu remained in ambush and confirmed on this Dakar the steadiness he had already demonstrated all year long: vice-world-rally-raid-champion, he is also second in the benchmark event of this category keeping just about enough distance with USA’s rising star Chris Blais. In the top 10 of the overall rankings, the KTM Repsol team, which lost three competitors along the way, was close to absent. However, the long list of breakdowns gave hope to the amateurs as 7 of them aer in the elite and were the fastest in five of the special stages this year: i.e. Faria, then Rodrigues and Vinters twice each). Amongst them is Portuguese Helder Rodrigues, ranking 5th, who wins in the 450cc category in front of Corsican restaurant owner Michel Marchini and triple winner of the Touquet Enduro Thierry Bethys. The rookie rankings of the Dakar finds France’s endurance race champion and winner of the FFM Dakar Enduro Challenge, Fabien Planet in the lead: Fabien finishes 12th in the overall rankings. The women’s competition, which remained very animated until Tambacounda for the 6 female bikers who started in Lisbon, was dominated end to end by Ludivine Puy, 44th in the overall rankings.
29 year old South African, Elmer Symons has died. He was taking part in his first Dakar supported by his brother Kingsley Symons.
Yamaha’s Helder Rodrigues wins 450 class in Dakar For the third time since the conception of the new technical regulations of the Dakar the Yamaha WR450F has been victorious in the hotly contested 450cc motorcycle class. David Frétigné won the class in 2004 and 2005 and Helder Rodrigues came close in 2006 when he finished ninth overall as best Yamaha rider. This year Rodrigues managed to clinch the 450 class title. The Portuguese Enduro star finished two and half hours behind race winner Cyril Despres (KTM >450cc) to match Frétigné’s best performance in 2005 with a fifth position overall. Quad rider Josef Machanek caused more reason for celebrations in the Yamaha camp with his overall victory in the Quad category. The Czech proved the speed and endurance of his Banshee YFZ350 by leading only five fellow competitors from 13 starters over the finish line. Helder Rodrigues’ fifth position overall places him as second best privateer rider behind Norwegian Pal Anders Ullevalseter (KTM), who finished fourth overall, but on a bigger capacity bike. Besides consistency, Helder showed some fearsome speed on the more technical stages. He finished second in the sandy opening leg, won the second and tenth stage and finished third in the 16 km beach special on the last day. On the stages where top speed was less advantageous, Rodrigues always made sure to claw back time on the bigger bikes. The accumulated experience of his previous two Dakar participations helped Rodrigues to celebrate his first African stage win this year; “The stage of day 10 was very technical, which allowed me to battle with bikes from the bigger categories. With my 450, I lost out somewhat on the straight sections, but I was able to make up for this on the technical parts. I’ve had a good day and this victory is very important for the team, and me as well, because it’s the first time that I’ve won a special stage in Africa. Previously, my best was a third place last year”. Rodrigues continued by confirming he exceeded his own expectations, and vows to be back next year even stronger; “My aim was to be in the top five and to win one stage. I am fifth in the overall rankings and I won two stages. So I am more then happy. We all worked well together. The team was better and so was the Yamaha. I was unable to give priority to preparing the Dakar because of my endurance race commitments. But next year, I’ll change priorities and dedicate more time to preparing for the Dakar”. Besides the winning success of Rodrigues there have been other great achievements of WR450F riders. The Frenchman Michel Marchini finished seventh overall and second in the 450 class, while Dutchwomen Mirjam Pol again managed to finish as runner-up female. She has left 84 males in her wake and 49th overall is a significant improvement over her 80th place last year. Although it is not an official category victory, Mirjam is in fact the fastest woman on a 450, as her French opponent Ludivine Puy (KTM) finished in front of her on a bigger capacity machine. The formidable result for the 23-year-old sports teacher did not come easy and she has had some ups and downs since leaving Lisbon; “At the end of the marathon stage in Foum Zguid, I started running a fever and it got worse the next day. Then during the stage to Zouerat I landed badly after a jump and twisted my right ankle. I did not think much of it in the beginning, but the pain kept me awake allnight.” With her ankle tightly strapped, the strong Dutchwoman kept on going. “I don’t care so much about my ranking or about the other women in the race. Ludivine Puy was better than me this year”, she admits looking at the rankings. During the stage to Atar, Mirjam deserved a fair-play award when she stopped to give another top female competitor Swedish Annie Seel some fuel. Most of the seasoned contestants judged the 2007 Dakar to be a little bit easier then previous editions. Over half of the 245 motorcyclist, 132 to be precise, made it to the finish, a percentage that is slightly higher then past events. Helder Rodrigues led the following 29 fellow WR450F riders over the finish line on the beach at Dakar:
STAGE 14 - 20/01/2007 Under control The Tambacounda – Dakar stage had to be completed without trouble to thing about the final victory with a bit more certainly. Mission accomplished for Cyril Despres, who only timed 5th of the day, but will start at Lac Rose with a 36-minute lead over teammate David Casteu. The day’s special has been won by Brazilian Jean De Azevedo, who compensates for a rally made difficult from the start by a long list of break-downs. In the cars category, the fifth stage victory this year for Carlos Sainz does not change the overall rankings still lead by Peterhansel. Hans Stacey is also safely in the lead in the trucks category. Winner of the day’s stage is Philippe Jacquot. Well aware that incidents may happen anytime on the Dakar, as demonstrated by the withdrawal of Marc Coma yesterday, Cyril Despres did not take any chances en route to Dakar. Having started first of this one-before-last stage, the Frenchman rode in the lead accompanied by Chris Blais but did not push his KTM too much. On arrival, the leader in the overall rankings had achieved 5th fastest time, 7’03 behind winner of the day Jean De Azevedo. The Brazilian wins the second special stage of his career after winning in Tambacounda in 2005. He is ahead of Poland’s Jacek Czachor at 2’ and Latvian Janis Vinters who is more than 5’behind. The scare of the day was for David Casteu. Victim of a fuel injection problem in the long stretch leading to the start of the special stage, the Frenchman thought he might actually loose his second place in the overall rankings threatened by US biker Chris Blais. Chance and dense traffic on the road led to the fact that the special stage was postponed by half-an-hour. It was just the time the inhabitant of Nice needed to repair his KTM and leave on time. He finishes 5th loosing only 5’ on Blais, arriving 3rd. In the overall rankings, Despres is now 36’09 ahead of Casteu and 53’01 in front of Blais. There are now 16 km left to be driven without trouble before the Frenchman can win his second Dakar after a first victory in 2005. Once in Dakar, the bikers found out about the sad news concerning the death of Eric Aubijoux. The French biker was taking part in his sixth Dakar and was the victim of a cardiac arrest on the course of the liaison, just 15 kilometres away from the finish (see special press release). ISTAGE 13 - 19/01/2007 The end of the line for Coma Cyril Despres visits Marc Coma 002 - Cyril Despres 303 - Carlos Sainz Two days from the arrival in Dakar just as the rally was entering Senegal, the motorbike race was hit by another bombshell with Marc Coma’s serious crash after only 57 kilometres of the special stage. The leader of the general rankings since the first Moroccan stage suffered a head injury after hitting a tree. Cyril Despres takes over as race leader. In the car race, Stéphane Peterhansel maintained his presence at the top of the general rankings without slacking off: he finished 2nd, 26’’ behind Sainz, who won his fourth special of the year today. In the truck race, Ales Loprais in his Tatra was victorious for the first time on the Dakar. In the general rankings Hans Stacey leads Mardeev by more than 3 hours. Marc Coma finally made a mistake. Amongst all the challengers for overall victory, he stood out due to his assurance. On the day he stormed the general rankings, between Er Rachidia and Ouarzazate, he put a distance of around thirty kilometres between him and his rivals, giving a feeling that he was in total control. An iron fist in a velvet glove, in a way, just like the rest of the rally-raid season in which Coma won the five races in which he took part. He controlled his lead in the general rankings with the same ease right the way through Mauritania. Whilst Despres and Esteve struggled with an epidemic that affected the gear-boxes of the KTM 690, he mysteriously avoided contamination. There was, however, a flaw in the almost perfect plan designed to lead Marc Coma to a second overall Dakar victory. After around fifty kilometres of the special, the Catalan was first seen to blatantly lose his way. Several minutes later, he it a tree stump on a parallel track six kilometres away from the ideal route and was thrown against a tree. A moment’s uncertainty or hesitation was all that was required to put paid to his adventure. Left initially groggy stood next to his bike, Coma soon gave into the effects of his head injury and lost consciousness. After a few minutes, he was picked up by a medical team helicopter. At the bivouac, the doctors checked over the title-holder, who had by then regained consciousness, before evacuating him to the hospital in Dakar for further examinations. Cyril Despres, who started out today tailing Coma by almost an hour, inherits the uncomfortable position of general rankings leader by default, in tandem with setting the best time of the day on the special. The Frenchman, who didn’t need this unfortunate event to remind him of the stakes involved in the forthcoming final days of the race, indeed lost more than forty minutes last year between Tambacounda and Dakar, the stage which is on the programme for tomorrow. He does not have as much of a lead over Casteu, who is now 35’28’’ behind Despres. Finally, Catalonia was also hit by the Isidre Esteve’s crash just before CP1: still able to ride, he awaited his assistance truck to repair his bike and set off again toward Tambacounda. STAGE 12 - 18/01/2007 Spaniard Isidre Esteve won his 2nd stage in this Dakar, 3’03 ahead of
Paulo Goncalves & 4’04 ahead of Jacek Czachor. Frans Verhoeven
dislocated his shoulder. Getting into Mali is also for the competitors of the Dakar being confronted with new elements e.g. the many crisscrossing trails and village bypasses. The navigation difficulties of the route led a few people astray although this did not change much in the lead but it nevertheless allowed Isidre Esteve to win his second special stage of the year. In the cars category, Carlos Sainz did not hesitate much en route towards a third victory in a special stage this year, while Luc Alphand is now only six minutes behind leader Stéphane Peterhansel. In the trucks category, Hans Stacey increased his lead in the overall rankings by winning a fifth special stage. After half-a-day’s rest and a no-timed route to Ayoun El Atrous, back to the reality of the race for the 140 bikers still in the race. This short special stage gave a few sudden developments as the best bikers themselves were taken aback by the navigation difficulty of the day. Looking for a way point on km 82 the leaders ahead of the race experienced a long period of being lost allowing their pursuers to catch up on them. The result is that on km 118, 11 bikers were driving together. This is a good operation for Isidre Esteve who started 13th this morning and was already clocked with the best time at the only CP of the special stage. In the last curvy part of the Stage, the group of 11 got reduced to 5 people including the Spaniard and his teammates Despres and Casteu, the leader in the overall rankings Marc Coma and Janis Vinters. A group leading the race without Frans Verhoeven, victim of a bad fall and injured on both shoulders. Esteve kept his headstart until the finish and hence wins his second stage in this edition of the Dakar, his 8th victory in total on the Dakar. Arrived a few seconds after the first group, Paulo Goncalves gets second best time 3’03 behind the winner. The Portuguese on a Honda 450cc also achieved his best performance so far on the Dakar as did Polish biker Jacek Czachor, who ranks third of the stage. South-African privateer, Tom Classen, who’s a plumber by trade, surprised everyone by getting fourth best time of the day. Fabien Planet, winner of the endurance Dakar Challenge FFM, confirms his promising debut with a 5th place here in Kayes. The overall rankings are only slightly evolving though. Despres catches a bit less than 2’ upon Coma, who still has more than 50’ headstart on the Frenchman. In his quest of the last and third place on the podium, David Casteu can catch his breath. The Frenchman, 5th of today’s stage, adds almost 6’ to his advantage over Chris Blais, who is now more than 30 minutes behind the pilot from KTM-Gauloises. In the cars category, the leaders in the overall rankings have not been spared by getting lost but the subtleties of navigation were not overly important. After starting 5th of the special stage, Carlos Sainz gave a demonstration of talent passing a Stéphane Peterhansel undoubtedly concerned with protecting his Mitsubishi, before overtaking his teammate at Volkswagen Mark Miller. The Spaniar, whose only goal is now to win stages, gets his third victory this year. Attention is now on the internal battle at Mitsu between Peterhansel and Alphand. The 12th stage was beneficial for the second one. The title holder, second today, gained back more than 3’ to his famous predecessor. Two ‘true’ stages from Dakar, Peter has a 6’29 lead. The struggle for third position – fascinating too – now allowed Nasser Al Attiyah to gain 5’ back on Jean-Louis Schlesser. Qatari is less than 25’ from target in the overall rankings but must watch out for Mark Miller, fifth less than 20’ behind him. In the truck race, Hans Stacey does not only have a huge lead of almost 3 hours but also won his fifth special stage in the rally. Here is an additional proof that the Dutchman is really sailing through the Dakar in his MAN truck. On the way to Kayes, Stacey left his challenger of the day Tomas Tomecek 4’53 behind. Ranking third Wulfert Van Ginkel is 5’50 behind. In the overall rankings, Ilgizar Mardeev is 2h59 behind Stacey.
STAGE 11 - 17/01/2007 After the change of course recommended by the Foreign Ministry, the participants of the 29th Dakar enjoyed a half-day’s rest in Nema swept across by the howling winds of the Sahel before heading – on a no timed route – to Ayoun-el-Atrous, a small town located tome 280 km from the start. At this stage in the raid, 142 bikers, 112 car teams and 60 trucks are still in the race; the retinue has lost a big third of its volume since Lisbon. The leaders in the race, who have now covered 3,416 kilometers against the clock at the sustained pace of 83,48 km/on average for Marc Coma on a bike and 90,87 km/h for Stéphane Peterhansel in his Mitsu, finally had the opportunity to enjoy the scenery without thinking race strategy or worrying about the threats of mechanical breakdowns. On the bikers’ side, the gearboxes of the big KTM 690 have stopped causing trouble over the last few days to the greatest satisfaction of Marc Coma, who has more than an hour’s lead on Cyril Despres in the overall rankings but he is now without teammates since the withdrawals of Viladoms and Sala. This loneliness at the top kept going today on the stretch of asphalt as the main stakeholders in the race kept respectable distances between one another. In the cars category, just like in 2005 and 2006 Mitsubishi is being faced with rich people’s problems with Stéphane Peterhansel in the lead and Luc Alphand second at 9’56’’ of the leader in the overall rankings. The last two winners of the Dakar drove together to Ayoun, whilst Qatari Nasser Al Attiyah, winner of the last special stage, is still raging against the delay – longish indeed but statutory – with which he was imposed a penalty for speeding. The 39-minute penalty cost him the third place on the podium, still held by Jean-Louis Schlesser. The double confrontation between Peter and Alphand and between Schlesser and Al Attiyah should make the show in the last days of the race during which the rally will go back to Mali and then enter Senegal. In preparation to getting back to black Africa, the daily briefing of Etienne Lavigne to participants will again handle the main measures taken by the road safety plan of the Dakar e.g. in terms of bypassing villages and sticking to the speed limit.
STAGE 10 - 16/01/2007 The Repsol KTM rider Jordi Viladoms - who was injured when he hit a stone in the sand last Friday - underwent surgery on Tuesday morning at the USP Institut Universitari Dexeus in Barcelona. He had a fracture of the left arm elbow, fracture of the base of the fifth metacarpal of the left hand and a third fracture in the shoulder blade without displacement of the left shoulder. Right arm fractures of the scaphoid and the base of the second, third and fourth metacarpal. Right leg fracture-dislocation of the right ankle. Surgeons described the operation was satisfactory. Yamaha keep firm grip on the 450cc class lead With a stage-win, a second place and six other top 15 finishes Yamaha WR450F rider Helder Rodrigues (POR) is the current leader of the category up to 450cc. Helder is closely chased by Frenchman Michel Marchini, also riding a Yamaha WR450F. With nine of the 15 riding days and already 5000 km absolved, the riders are now less then a week away from the finish of the grueling 2007 edition of the Dakar rally. Top Yamaha man David Frétigné held the 450cc class lead up to stage seven, but then misfortune hit him hard and he was forced to retire. David crashed heavily in the dunes on the seventh leg from Zouérat to Atâr, the last stage before the rest day. David explained; "After the fuel stop around 350 km's in the stage my bike did not run well and I crashed when the engine stopped when I was descending a dune. I went over the handle bars and the bike landed on top of me and the foot peg hit me in my right side, injuring my ribs." Despite the aggravation David remounted straight away and carried on with his crash damaged bike in order not to loose too much time on the leaders. "The fuelling problems continued and David lost a further one and a half hours doing the necessary repairs. David arrived very tired and frustrated at the finish line; "To make things worse, just on the day when I have a problem the stage was made ten km longer due to poor visibility!" After the finish it became clear that David's condition was pretty bad with two fractured and one broken rib; 'I did not sleep at all and it felt like somebody was poking a knife in my right side". The next morning David decided to retire from the race; I'm not able to restart in this condition and be competitive, I would have to take unnecessary risks just for making up the numbers. I came here to finish each of the stages in the top six, close to the podium overall and win the 450cc class, that is now impossible, so it is better to quit." With Frétigné out, Yamaha's hopes are now on Helder Rodrigues who had one of his toughest days on the Sunday stage. This 589 km special stage was the longest and possibly the hardest day of the rally; very difficult to navigate and with a very rocky surface. Rodrigues was one of the riders to get lost early on, costing him a detour of 15 km, yet he recovered strongly to finish 12th overall. Yesterday, Monday 15 January,Rodrigues further improved his position in the overall standings with a seventh position finish, Marchini came in eight minutes later to trail Rodrigues on 40 minutes in the overall standings and second in the 450 class. The leaders overall (bikes over 450cc capacity) are the factory supported Coma (Spa), followed by Despres (Fra) and Casteu (Fra). Yamaha rider Josef Machacek (CZE) is on top of the Quads leaderboard.
STAGE 9 - 15/01/2007 Between Tichit and Nema, Marc Coma strategically managed his lead in the overall rankings by driving without rushing on top of the race during the 494km of today’s special stage. But it’s amateur biker Janis Vinters, who started 21st this morning, who gave Latvia its first victory in a special stage of the rally. The gearbox defect hitting the new KTM 690 is probably somewhere at the back of the mind of leader in the bike race Marc Coma. But it certainly did not prevent him from further pursuing its triumphant march on Dakar. In this 9th stage of the raid, the Catalan spent the day alone once again. He started first, he finished first, however without making the best time: this is race management ‘a la Coma’. The winner of this 4th Mauritanian stage has not yet been seen since the beginning of the rally. Janis Vinters, 10th in last year’s edition, surprised everyone by getting the best timing on all CPs before victoriously crossing the line 7’31’’ ahead of Cyril Despres. Behind, Coma’s adversaries could not do anything. His challenger, Cyril Despres, who fell on km 130, had started this special stage with navigation tools malfunctioning; he had to go through the whole special manually scrolling through his road book. Hard, therefore, to catch up with the Catalan, who remains way ahead and only gave in 22’’ to the Frenchman. The gap is till 54’36’’ between the two men. As for Pal-Anders Ullevalseter, happy to be in the top 5 of the overall rankings, he just caught up with and then followed Despres till 30 km of the finish. The Norwegian finishes 4th at 7’53’’. Dutchman Frans Verhoeven's gearbox broke 198km into the stage. Despres was uninjured in a fall but he has damaged his road book. Latvian Janis Vinters was the provisional winner of Stage 9. This would be his first Dakar victory, Cyril Despres 2nd & Marc Coma 3rd. STAGE 8 - 14/01/2007 Swedish female rider Annie Seel has a fuel pump problem & is waiting for her assistance team. Ruben Faria from Portugal & Argentinian Orlando Terranova have engine failure.
REST DAY - 13/01/2007
STAGE 7 - 12/01/2007 French rider Eric Piroud's engine has failed. Special stage cancelled for safety reasons as the strong winds made riding dangerous. Cyril Despres (KTM) wins his 15th stage victory on the Dakar. Spainiard Marc Coma (KTM) still keeps the lead of the overall ranking, with 10’47 lead over his countryman Isidre Esteve.
Best British rider in Dakar Rally, Mick Extance is found safe after missing overnight in the desert Optoma Loans Honda Dakar rider, Mick Extance has been found in the desert and is now on the Sweeper Truck for stranded riders, heading to Atar in the middle of the Sahara, for a medical check up. Details For more updates check out www.dakar.com Time Schedule
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Elmer Symons dies
Mick
is safe