Another time the departure of the special was delayed. This time by a hard day of the helicopters in the yesterday stage having to locate and assist the drivers with problems in the dunes of Fiambalá. By what they could not return before night fell to the point of departure of this morning.
Stéphane Peterhansel With his new triumph yesterday and his third on this edition, has given the statisticians a little more work. The Frenchman has improved his own record of the largest amount of stage victories, with a total of 68 successes, including 35 in a car.
Already the record holder for overall triumphs on a bike (six) and in a car (five), Peter only has one sole rival in the Dakar’s historical roll of honour: Ari Vatanen. The four times winner from Finland still has the record for the most stage wins in a car, with 50 successes.
On the other hand it should be noted the definitive abandonment of Carlos Sainz was making a great rally but yesterday his Peugeot said enough to break the gearbox housing.
The stage today took us from La Rioja to San Juan with the famous “fesh-fesh” with 431 km of special. 80 participants remain in the category of cars struggling to get to the finish line.
Since a good start, with Peterhansel opening up the track, Sébastien Loeb returned to load after a few steeps where there had been a little behind. The two drivers of Peugeot fell in a duel with tiny differences followed by Cyril Despres to little more than 1 minute. In the WP7 but, Giniel de Villiers came in the fight of the stage and was placed fourth ahead of Despres by 24 seconds.
Still missing some Mini in scene and in the WP7 too, Nasser Al-Attiyah, was the surprise going first to 9 seconds of Peterhansel and 14 seconds of Loeb. The Mini driver finished today as the fastest, Loeb was second and