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 | Dakar 2010: Carlos Sainz - "This was an extremely hard day".
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"The Dakar Rally started in earnest today" said Volkswagen´s Kris Nissen after the Day. "We knew that as of today things would be getting much more difficult. Nevertheless, we were a little surprised about how difficult it really was and how slow the average speed was on the course. With Carlos Sainz´s second place in front of his team-mates we continue doing well in the race and have every reason to be optimistic."
For the Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah it was again a fast day: "Today the Dakar showed its true face to me for the first time. The leg was extremely tough and for the first time we drove in soft sand. Unfortunately, we lost time due to a puncture and got lost once. My co-driver Timo Gottschalk had to get out of the car to look for the way at a canyon. That cost some time, but there´ll still be plenty of opportunities to make it up again."
The Spaniard Carlos Sainz, 2nd place overall, added: "This was an extremely strenuous stage both in terms of the physical strain and driving demands, with incredibly high temperatures in the cockpit. Although we lost a little time to Stéphane Peterhansel today it´s important to bring the car to the finish undamaged particularly at the beginning of a Dakar. Our days are still ahead."
Mark Miller (4th Overall) said: "Actually, the stage today went well for us. We hardly lost any time in the dunes, avoided punctures and didn´t get stuck at any point in time. We´re very pleased with this section. Our problem, though, was the start to the special stage. There we took the wrong way right at the beginning and lost an enormous amount of time searching. We´d better not let that happen to us every day."
For the Brasilian Maurício Neves it was a harder day: "In terms of driving and navigating the third rally day was really tricky. We lost a bit of time because we took the wrong way at the beginning. The dune section was hard to handle because we could only drive in narrow areas at times. But all in all I´m happy because the rough days are still coming up. Even though we lost some time - everything´s still possible."
2010/01/04 | 21:17 CET | Editor: MR/HS/VW/S.Moser
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