Into the dunes the Dakar Rally enters, where for many the true spirit of this adventure truly begins, reports EVAN ROTHMAN. For the second day in his home country, Francisco Lopez Contardo (Aprilia) dominated the Bikes category but it was Paulo Goncalves (BMW) who claimed the stage win to clinch the German marque’s first stage victory on this event since 2000 with Richard Sainct. The never-ceasing pressure from the BMW X3CC crews paid dividends, and on their favoured terrain the dunes, to see Stephane Peterhansel/Jean-Paul Cottret claim his first stage win of the 2011 Dakar Rally. The Russian master Vladimir Chagin lost his overall lead in the Trucks category to Firdaus Kabirov (both drivers piloting Kamaz trucks).
SS5: Calama to Iqueque
Road Section: 36km
Special Stage: 423km
Bikes:
Lopez Contardo gave a faultless performance over the day’s 423km special stage, giving him the stage win by 01sec from Franz Verhoeven (BMW) after he took a tumble only 2km from the finish line. However, after a timing correction by race officials it was Paulo Goncalves who was gifted the stage victory. It was the first time in the history of this event that BMW won both Cars and Bikes categories on the same stage.
Olivier Pain’s crash saw the rider retire from the event with a broken wrist, thus promoting all others behind him one place up the leaderboard. Stage winner Goncalves stopped to assist the injured Pain and was thus rewarded with a corrected time for his efforts.
At the top of the overall standings, Marc Coma (KTM) who crashed early on in the stage, lost a whopping 13min to Goncalves and Lopez Contardo, and saw his lead over Cyril Despres (KTM) whittled down to 10min 14sec. Why is Despres over 10min behind Coma? Despres received a 10min time penalty at the end of SS4, thus dropping him way off the lead pace. Had Coma not fallen, his lead would have been even greater over the Frenchman… The overall Bikes leaderboard remains with Coma at the head of the field, Despres in second, Lopez Contardo in third and Goncalves in fourth (over 21min 42sec behind Coma).
Cars:
Stephane Peterhansel took advantage of navigational errors made by both his closest rivals Carlos Sainz and Nasser Al-Attiyah (both in Volkswagen Race Touareg 3s). At the halfway point of the stage, Peterhansel had opened up a 02min 45sec gap over his rivals, but they started to close in on him, but the Frenchman regained his stronghold on the stage to win the stage by 01min 24sec over Al-Attiyah and 03min 15sec over Sainz.
This means that Sainz still holds the overall lead of the Cars category by a margin of 02min 26sec over Peterhansel and 02min 33sec ahead of Al-Attiyah. Giniel de Villiers (Volkswagen Race Touareg 3) is still in fourth place, but about 20min off the final podium position holder. Guerlain Chicherit (MINI) is having a Dakar Rally to forget: with his mechanical woes on SS1, he was caught in a deep rut on SS5 that cost him more valuable minutes… Krystof Holowycz, the former champion Polish rally ace, is still holding strong in fifth place overall in his BMW X3CC over 47min behind Sainz, with Orlando Terranova (BMW X3CC) in sixth a further ten minutes adrift.
Trucks:
Vladimir Chagin (Kamaz) lost 0ver 20min in this stage to teammate Firdaus Kabirov without any real reason as to why, and also his grasp of the lead of the category. Kabirov gladly accepted the stage win, his second of 2011, and the overall Trucks lead with a 13min advantage over Chagin and 25min over Ales Loprais (Tatra).
Classification after SS5:
Bikes:
01) M. Coma (KTM) – 16hr 59m 33s
02) C. Despres (KTM) + 10m 14s
03) F. Lopez Contardo ( Aprilia) + 18m 32s
04) P. Goncalves (BMW) + 21m 42s
05) H. Rodrigues (Yamaha) + 32m 05s
06) R. Faria (KTM) + 35m 14s
07) J. Pedrero Garcia (KTM) + 40m 01s
08) J. Street (Yamaha) + 42m 55s
09) J. Viladoms (Yamaha) + 44m 23s
10) F. Verhoeven (BMW) + 49m 55s
Cars:
01) C. Sainz/L. Cruz (VW) – 15hr 45m 48s
02) S. Peterhansel/J-P. Cottret (BMW) + 02m 26s
03) N. Al- Attiyah/T. Gottschalk (VW) + 02m 33s
04) G. De Villiers/D. Von Zitzewits (VW) + 21m 20s
05) K. Holowycz/J-M. Fortin (BMW) + 47m 53s
06) O. Terranova/F. Palmeiro (BMW) + 58m 59s
07) M. Miller/R. Pitchford (VW) + 01hr 26m 03s
08) G. Spinelli/Y. Haddad (BMW) + 01hr 33m 34s
09) J. Roma/M. Perin (Nissan) +01hr 44m 39s
10) C. Lavielle/J-M. Forthomme (Nissan) + 02hr 14m 24s
Trucks:
01) F. Kabirov (Kamaz) – 17hr 39m 08s
02) V. Chagin (Kamaz) + 13m 36s
03) A. Loprais (Tatra) + 25m 20s
04) E. Nikolaev (Kamaz) + 01hr 03m 10s
05) F. Echter (MAN) + 01hr 03m 15s
06) A. De Azevedo (Tatra) + 01hr 43m 23s
07) I. Mardeev (Kamaz) + 01hr 49m 31s
08) P. Vila (Iveco) + 02hr 37m 03s
09) M. Van Vliet (MAN) + 03hr 15m 17s
10) M. Behringer (MAN) + 03hr 19m 41s