Despres wins amid on & off track challenges.
Dakar 2018 got down to serious business with a bruising second day across a 263km route of dune racing around the Peruvian port of Pisco, with the event starting out cruel for some as top contenders faltered and crashed and a timing system glitch initially spat out wrong results to get many a hope a little too high…
It appears that there was some sort of glitch in the Dakar timing service that initially showed South Africa’s Giniel de Villiers as having won the day and also as the overall leader. The system then crashed and when it spluttered back to life, Giniel was however credited with fourth for the day, 7 minutes behind a Peugeot 1-2-3 headed by stage winner, Frenchman Cyril Despres ahead of teammates and countrymen Stephane Peterhansel and Sebastien Loeb,
Giniel did have a great final section in the real world, as he passed both Orlando Terranova’s fifth placed Mini and Carlos Sainz’ Peugeot in that dramatic last sector to move into fourth overall behind Peterhansel, Despres and Loeb and ahead of Sainz and Terranova in the overall standings. Miko Hirvonen brought the Mini buggy home seventh ahead of overnight leader Nasser Al Attiyah in the second Toyota, Martin Prokop in a SA-built Ford Ranger and Ronan Chabot in a Toyota, to make it four South African-built cars in the top ten.
Also of South African interest, Hennie de Klerk was having a good day as we wrote, moving up to 30th from his 59th starting position in the TreasuryOne Amarok.
The Peugeot’s dominated from the outset, with an intra-team battle raging between the four drivers and the lead swapping between Peterhansel and Despres as Loeb kept a watching brief. The Borgward that so impressed on Saturday faded, while several other drivers struggled through a day of attrition.
Dakar rookie Bryce Menzies, who was fourth overnight, crashed his Mini buggy heavily to retire, while the Minis of Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Boris Garafulic collided in the dunes with both crews waiting for assistance to repair their vehicles amomng the many tales of woe of a rough and tough second day of Dakar 2018…
French Honda rider Adrien van Beveren meanwhile led the motorcycles through the midpoint CP3 ahead of Chilean Pablo Quintanilla’s Husqvarna, Argentinians Kevin Benavedes’ Honda and Franco Caimi’s Yamaha, Spain’s Juan Barreda Bort on a Honda and German Matthias Walkner on the fastest of the KTMs. Of the South Africans, only David Thomas had passed CP1 in 46th on his Husqvarna.