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 | Dakar Rally 2013: De Rooy performs cast-iron until Stage 11 was stopped.
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Unfortunately another day that can be deleted from the books as an official competition day. The 11th Special from La Rioja to Fiambalá with a length of 190 kilometres was stopped at CP1.
Gerard de Rooy and his Iveco were on the lead at CP1, 56 seconds ahead of Ales Loprais (Tatra) and 2:06 minutes of Nikolaev. Mardeev (both Kamaz) follows, being 3:07 minutes behind, followed by Versluis and Karginov. Miki Biasion drives safe and follows his team-mate at 7:21 minutes. René Kuipers passed SP1 at 10:11 minutes, taking the 11th place.
"Finally, after 2 minor days, it felt good again" said Gerard de Rooy. "Indeed a pity that the trucks weren´t allowed to go on. Our chances are reducing when it goes like this. But let´s look forward, to Friday´s stage," smiling he went into his air-conditioned camper to enjoy his well-deserved rest.
Tom Colsoul reported: "We had the right drive today. The organisation is still deliberating to keep CP1 as the final score. If it was up to me, the trucks could have moved on but unfortunately that´s not how it works in the rally world. Just after CP1 we saw both Nikolaev and Mardeev standing still with a flat tyre. We knew that Mardeev already had one before so that made it all very attractive for us."
The 12th Special on Friday is another tough one. Again in Chile the convoy takes the route from Fiambalá to Copiapió. The connecting stage is 396 kilometres and the Special 319 kilometres. Again they have to cross the Andes during their connecting stage; via the "El Paso San Francisco" and then back to the Atacama desert with it´s huge dunes; locals also call them the "cathedral" dunes.
2013/01/17 | 15:55 CET | ARTICLE: MR/HS/DEROOY
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