Dakar 2015 Stage 2 - 518kms Villa Carlos Paz - San Juan What a difference a day makes. But thats always the way at Dakar. They mean it when they say its the worlds toughest race. After blasting through to a podium finish yesterday, Robby Gordons stage, and quite possibly his entire Dakar, was over as quick as it began. Before reaching the first of thirteen checkpoints, Gordon pulled off the track to fix complications due to overheated brakes. It was hot in Argentina today – 41°C hot. Gordon lost 50 minutes early and a 1,600m (5,250ft) steep descent around the 80km mark couldn’t have helped the matter. He was able to get it going again and keep the damage to around 50 minutes as the day progressed but 30km from home stopped again and had to be towed to the finish line. Gordon finished the stage more than four hours behind the leader, Nasser Al Attiyah, but has not lost all hope of finishing the Dakar in a good position: “Everybody is going to have problems on this Dakar. Ive lost 4 hours, but its only the second day of the race. Im not done for yet, no way”. The GORDINI crew will definitely have their hands full in the bivouac tonight. Hopefully they can minimise the damage and get back on track tomorrow. Frenchman Guerlain Chicherit struggled too with problems unknown, 49th across the finish line, just one place ahead of Gordon. The X-Raid team worked tirelessly last night on engine problems and perhaps this wasnt completely resolved. So far, no word, but rest assured, this team has the potential to win a stage and theyll keep fighting to the bitter end. Up front, Nasser Al-Attiyah bounced back from yesterdays disappointment and took the win in Stage 2. To add insult to injury, last years champ Nani Roma gave away another thirty minutes today and has lost all hope of winning another title this time around. At the time of writing, all the rest of Team Toyo was yet to finish. The last word on the Aussie team of Adrian Di Lallo and Harry Suzuki, they were approaching the final waypoint after 8.5 hours of racing. A gruelling day for the Isuzu team. Tomorrow, a shorter and less intense stage will hopefully allow them to recover and catch breath. General Ranking 1 #305 Al-Attiyah (QAT) Mini 06:19:40 2 #303 De Villiers (ZAF) Toyota +00:07:42 3 #315 Ten Brinke (NLD) Toyota +00:09:42 46 #323 Chicherit (FRA) X-RAID +03:58:32 48 #308 Gordon (USA) Hummer +04:06:40 Not yet finished #400 Raud (FRA) #407 Di Lallo (AUS) #417 Tuheil (FRA) #420 Gharib (DEU) #422 Houles (FRA) #433 Marrocchi (ARG)
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 05:16:16 +0000
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