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 | Dakar Rally 2013 TICKER: After investigation - Carlos Sainz winner of SS02.
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Carlos Sainz and co-driver Timo Gottschalk have won stage 2 of the 2013 Dakar in their Qatar buggy equipped with Toyo Tires Open Country M/TR tires. With two wins from the first two stages, Sainz leads the rally by 5 minutes and 5 seconds from the X-Raid Mini of 2012 winner Peterhansel.
The second win was not without drama however, with Sainz initially being placed 10th after a problem with his official GPS system failing to register that the Qatar buggy had passed a waypoint. The Spaniard was forced to circle back, crossing and recrossing the waypoint.
Finally, with the GPS still recording that he had not passed the waypoint, he took the brave decision to abandon the search, certain he had in fact legitimately passed it, and head for the finish. Some 15km later, the GPS suddenly began to show that Sainz had indeed passed the waypoint but by then, a lot of time had been lost on the road.
On arrival at the bivouac, a review of the GPS data by the ASO proved he had correctly passed the waypoint first time. After the deduction of the time spent returning to the waypoint, Sainz was awarded first place in the stage with Peterhansel, the initial winner being reclassified in second.
It was really strange out on the stage because of the problems we had with navigation. There was a waypoint on the stage that we passed three or four times before it would let us continue on the stage. We were going up and down and round and round because we knew we were in the right place.
"Eventually we decided to leave because we just couldn't find this waypoint" said Carlos Sainz. "This was a risky move because if you do not pass all the waypoints on the stage it can cost you a time penalty. Then after we travelled 3km away we got the waypoint confirmation. The whole thing was very strange and tonight we will have to investigate the problem and find the solution."
Nasser Al Attiyah reported: "We made a strong start to the stage today and everything was going well for us until we reached a waypoint that created a problem for us. We believed we were in the right place so we waited and waited before finally going to search in other places for the waypoint."
"Then we came back to our original position and only then did our GPS confirm that we had reached the waypoint. I’m sure this cost us a lot of time. But I’m happy to have both cars safely back to the bivouac."
2013/01/07 | 14:21 CET | ARTICLE: MR/HS/RIGNALL
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