G-Force Motorsport

Dakar 2013. Day 6. Not very good...

Thursday, 10 January 2013 23:45

Since the start of the rally it was the longest stage with 438 kilometers of special and 291 kilometers of liaison. It was expected to bring the brightest moments due to the variety of sceneries. It was like a in a movie: the competitors drove through mountains, sand, rocks and fesh-fesh. Though some scenes would have better not to happen.

Bad news came in the morning: A vehicle of Race2Recovery team, a Land Rover Defender (a team support vehicle not a race car) was involved in a head-on collision while travelling in convoy on Day 5 of the challenge with other support vehicles in the town of Tacna, in Peru near the Chilean border. It is understood that two other vehicles were involved in the accident and two people received fatal injuries and others were injured. The three Race2Recovery members were transferred to a hospital, their injuries were described as “non-life-threatening.”

 

Now back to the track of Day 6 at Dakar 2013.

The Chilean Francisco Lopez (#7) won in bikes today and thanks to this victory raised up from the 6th to the 4th line in overall, just a minute and a half behind the first three, who are Olivier Pain (#9), Cyril Despres (#1) and David Casteu (#10).

Francisco Lopez: The first part of the special went very well, but on the second section, the engine lost a fair bit of power and I started wondering whether it was a fuel problem or due to the altitude. I don't know, but I should find out when I get to the bivouac”.

Cyril Despres: I ate quite a lot of dust having started 5th this morning, but then I caught up with the stage leaders at the end of the first section. It was very quick, a WRC type route... At last there were some tracks and rocks. It was really nice to ride and on the second section, we all stuck together in single file. All in all, it was generally a good special and it's great to be in Chile!

Bikes standings after 6 stages (first three):

Pos. Name Mark Time variation Penalty
1 9 PAIN (FRA) YAMAHA 15:35:23 - -
2 1 DESPRES (FRA) KTM 15:37:45 0:02:22 -
3 10 CASTEU (FRA) YAMAHA 15:40:11 0:04:48 -

Bikes results after Stage 6>>>

In quads one more Chilean became a winner,  Ignacio Nicolás Casale (#254) having left Marcos Patronelli 6.5 minutes behind. Ignacio is happy to come first at the home special despite it does not affect the first three lines.

Full results in quada after Stage 6>>>

Again nothing is stable in cars because of  different problems. After 179 kilometres of racing, the engine in Carlos Sainz's buggy gave up the ghost.

Carlos Sainz (#303): I've had a lot of problems since the start of the rally, and today just took the biscuit! Something must have broken in the engine, but I don't know exactly what. It just happened all of a sudden. There wasn't any temperature warning or anything. But on the whole, I'm feeling positive and happy. We knew what happened was always a possibility: it's a new vehicle which hasn't driven that much. It all happened very quickly. But it was worth coming here with this concept. The proof is that Nasser (Al Attiyah) is battling for victory. I hope the experience will be useful for the future even if I'm not sure whether I'll come back”.

 

Vladimir Vasilyev (#331) came 22nd: Today I finished with only front drive again, the shank broke so the cardan simply flew away. Thanks god this did not happen before  we had driven through the trapped sand. And next were lots of tracks to drive well, lots of different dangers like dry river beds, holes, rocks and so on. Though all the things were the same as the previous days but with their own character. You should drive through the Dakar from start to finish before you are able to understand these roads. So we do our best for this.

Unfortunately the car #348 – Boris Gadasin and Alexey Kuzmich stopped with the front left suspension broken after they fell into a great hole.

Алексей Кузьмич (штурман): There was such a strange position in Road book with a twisted track and lots of deep holes, but we could not guess if any were of a certain kind. Finally, we bumped into a huge scour. The shock was of such a weight that the front ball bearing and the left shaft drive got ripped out, the wheel was torn off, every detail was incurved, the windscreen splintered at my side. We spent there three hours while repairing. We decided not to change the drive shaft, went on for the rest 100 kilometers with the rear drive. In general, nothing funny. Also we were not quite well ourselves after the shock. That was the way we spent the time: fixing our car and saving others in turns. I put some rocks as a wall in front of that scour to prevent others from bumping into it but all the same nobody could see either my fence or the hole… Hope both Boris and I will soon recover and the car will be OK after the accident.

Near the place Alexey also noticed the traces seemed to be of Eduard Nikolaev’s KAMAZ that also got some suspension damage. After the accident with Gadasin’s car the organizers’s car stood there warning other participants about the danger but this already was of no help for our crew.

Some gearbox issues experiences Sergey Savenko and Denis Maltsev’s crew (#365). They are still on the track trying to fix the problem and go on.

Nasser Al-Attiyah (#300) won the day. He almost caught up with Stéphane Peterhansel (#303) who had some problems today getting stuck in sand and because of the dust at the root of the mountains.

Giniel De Villiers (#301) and Nani Roma (#305) got into the same sand trap. De Villiers managed to dug out in 10 minutes while Roma spent there about 30 so now he is ah hour and a half behind the leader.

Cars standings after Stage 6 (first five):

1 302 PETERHANSEL (FRA) MINI 14:36:16 - -
COTTRET (FRA)
2 300 AL-ATTIYAH (QAT) BUGGY 14:37:34 0:01:18 -
CRUZ (ESP)
3 301 DE VILLIERS (ZAF) TOYOTA 15:18:47 0:42:31 -
VON ZITZEWITZ (DEU)
4 307 NOVISTKIY (RUS) MINI 15:21:03 0:44:47 -
ZHILTSOV (RUS)
5 309 CHICHERIT (FRA) SMG 15:52:42 1:16:26 -
GARCIN (FRA)

Full results after Stage 6>>>

The newsmaker today is Hans Stacey whose truck (#504) turned upside down.

Eduard Nikolaev (#501) was leading on the special but stopped, presumable for the above-mentioned reason.  Gerard De Rooy (#500) came the first but his rivals Andrey Karginov (#510) and Peter Versluis (#509) follow him just in 34 and 35 seconds respectively. 

Trucks standings after Stage 6 (first five)

1 500 DE ROOY (NLD) IVECO 17:23:45 - -
COLSOUL (BEL)
RODEWALD (NLD)
2 501 NIKOLAEV (RUS) KAMAZ 17:42:25 0:18:40 -
SAVOSTIN (RUS)
RYBAKOV (RUS)
3 505 MARDEEV (RUS) KAMAZ 17:54:17 0:30:32 -
BELYAEV (RUS)
MIRNIY (RUS)
4 506 KOLOMY (CZE) TATRA 18:02:16 0:38:31 -
KILIÁN (CZE)
KILIAN (CZE)
5 510 KARGINOV (RUS) KAMAZ 18:46:17 1:22:32 -
DEVYATKIN (RUS)
MOKEEV (RUS)

Полные результаты после 6 этапа>>>

Tomorrow comes day seventh. But unlike the Bible story that’s not the day for recreation. There are two more days before the “rest day” and tomorrow brings 281 kilometers of special and 417 kilometers of liaison.

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