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 | SA-Dakar Rally: Nice duel between Peterhansel and Gordon - and Roma wins.
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The car race on Stage 10 witnessed a fantastic duel between Robby Gordon (Hummer), first to start this morning, and Stephane Peterhansel (X-raid Mini), the two main rivals for victory in Lima, with the role of opening the road exchanged several times.
However, at the end of the special, whilst he was out in front, the American came off the tracks and damaged the front left wing of his car, leaving the road open for Peterhansel to go on and win.
But instead, Nani Roma and his navigator Michel Perin (X-raid Mini) had the final word in the debate. Third to start, the constantly consistent Catalan again put in a perfect performance to win his 5th stage victory on the Dakar.
More significantly, in the general standings, Nani Roma not only took advantage of the mishap suffered by Gordon, who in the end lost 14:14 minutes today, but also the mechanical problems encountered by Poland's Krzysztof Holowczyc, whose power steering broke down after 50 km, to grab 2nd place in the general standings, 19:05 mins behind the unchanged leader Peterhansel, now 46 seconds ahead of Gordon.
In the quad category, the stages roll by with little change. Even if a Patronelli did not win today, an Argentinean was still victorious: Tomas Maffei achieved the best time of the day. He regained 12:56 minutes on Marcos Patronelli in their fight for second place in the general standings, where he now only trails the winner in 2010 by 17:17.
The day's special also clearly pointed to the trend emerging at the end of the rally because the first 5 riders on the stage were also the first 5 in the general standings. Fourth-placed in this group, Ignacio Casale is 4 hours and 15 minutes behind Alejandro Patronelli in the general standings and fifth placed Sergio Lafuente trails the leader by 6 hours and 36 minutes.
2012/01/11 | 20:05 CET | ARTICLE: MR/SY/ASO
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