First stage win for Roma in Dakar Rally

Giniel De Villiers remains overall leader of the Dakar Rally despite Spaniard Nani Roma winning today’s 13th special stage.

Roma reached the line in his Mitsubishi in two hours 33 minutes 48 seconds for his first stage win and, although South African De Villiers finished eighth, he has an advantage of two minutes 20 seconds over team-mate Mark Miller.

The route was shortened from 545 kilometres to 220 because of heavy rains flooding La Rioja and Cordoba, and De Villiers’ safety strategy was obvious from the outset. He did not want to suffer the same fate as former leader Carl Sainz, who crashed out of the race after an accident yesterday.

In the bikes, title holder Cyril Despres (KTM) recorded his second successive stage victory and fourth in total with a time of 2:33:35 but Marc Coma, who finished second today, leads overall by 1:29:03.

Frenchman Despres said: “It’s fast, it’s fun. You just want one thing – to try and catch up time. But today the weather made it impossible to race the first part of the special stage.

“It’s a pity but that’s the race.”

Coma added: “It was a pretty tough stage. There was not a lot of grip so we had to stand on the bike the whole time. It was very demanding physically but very entertaining in the final part.”

Yamaha’s David Fretigne came third, a position he also occupies in the overall standings, but the Frenchman was just happy to have completed the tricky stage in one piece.

“This was a special stage where we could make a difference or lose everything,” he said. “There were a number of traps and small, narrow turns and for 30km it was very bendy with a lot of fast sections in between.

“There were ravines so I had to measure the risks I was taking.”

In the quads, Spaniard Carlos Avendano (Suzuki) won his first stage of the race in 2:53:12 but Czech biker Josef Machacek(Yamaha), who finished 2:12 behind Avendano, maintained a comfortable lead overall. His quest for the crown was aided by the fact second-placed Marcos Patronelli (Can Am) had a poor stage today, finishing eighth.