Dakar 2017: upheaval in the classification
DAKAR 2017 The 39th Dakar Rally in South America claimed prominent victims in the first few days. Two former overall winners, Nasser Al-Attiyah and Carlos Sainz, have already retired after accidents. However, the only Swiss driver is still in the race. On the fourth stage of the 2017 Dakar in South America, there was an upheaval in the [...]
The fourth stage of the 2017 Dakar in South America saw a shake-up in the standings on Thursday. Sébastien Loeb, who was leading after the third stage, suffered engine problems with his Peugeot 2008 DKR, which ultimately put him 22 minutes behind. The previous day's winner Stéphane Peterhansel went off the right track once and lost around a quarter of an hour as a result. Nevertheless, last year's winner from the Peugeot team moved up from third to second place.
Overall runner-up Carlos Sainz overturned his Peugeot 5 km before the finish of the fourth stage, which led from Argentina to Bolivia. As the damage to his Peugeot proved to be irreparable by the start on Friday, the rally is over for the two-time World Rally Champion. Nasser Al-Attiyah, who was in second place after two stages, was also forced to retire on Wednesday evening after an accident. The cross-country world champion from Qatar tore off a wheel of the fast Toyota Hilux pickup with a naturally aspirated V8 engine on a boulder.
With his first stage win on four wheels - after 33 previous successes on a motorcycle - the fourth Peugeot driver Cyril Desprès (F) moved up from seventh to first intermediate place on Thursday. Stéphane Peterhansel is 4'08 min behind in second place and Mikko Hirvonen from the X-raid Mini Team a further minute back in third.
A Swiss engineer supports driving pleasure
The Alsace-based Italian Marco Piana and his Swiss co-driver Steven Griener finished 60th in the car classification on Wednesday. However, their classifications are irrelevant, as they are primarily driving their Toyota Prado 120 to support their five customers from the Xtremeplus team and therefore accept large time gaps to help them.
Piana's customers enjoy the biggest driving adventure in the world with the Polaris RZR 1000XT+ - small two-seater buggies with 1000 cubic meter motorcycle engines - co-developed by Griener. Eight buggies will compete in this newly created SSV class up to one liter displacement. After two stages on Friday and Saturday, all remaining participants are looking forward to the rest day on Sunday.
Photos: Red Pool Content Pool, Xtremeplus
