2015 Dakar Rally updates
The original Paris-Dakar rally raid event ran from France to Senegal. Since 2009, however, the grueling off road endurance event moved to South America, running from Argentina to Chile. Teams of hundreds of people compete against each other in the worst conditions and over all kinds of terrain, on two wheels and four, and they're lucky if they finish each segment (“Raid”) of the event.
The 2015 Dakar rally has seen incredible resilience on the part of the teams, and at the end of stage seven, the competition is still wide open. The past few years have seen the Mini ALL4 Racing team dominate the four-wheel results sheet, winning the Dakar rally every year since 2012. On the two-wheeled front, KTM was the clear dominator, winning everything since 2001. The trucks entered into Dakar have less predicable results, however, Kamaz seems to be a hot contender this year, having earned consecutive top spots for the last two years.
At the end of stage five, Vladimir Vasilyev and co-driver Konstantin Zhiltsov were declared stage winners, driving the Mini ALL4 Racing car and easing out overall leader Nasser-al-Attiyah. The two Russians moved up four places in the overall classification, coming in at a strong seventh position overall. The 458 kilometre long route over the unforgivable Atacama Desert in Chile saw six MINI ALL4 Racing cars within the top ten, proving, yet again, why experience and technical know-how matters so much in Dakar. The same applied to the motorcycle category, hotly contested by Marc Coma (KTM) and Joan Barreda (Honda). Barreda has had several Dakar heartbreaks over the past years, but this year, his fantastic performance has kept him on the path to a win, although veteran rider Marc Coma seemed to be challenging Barreda's claim to the throne.
The sixth stage saw Australian Toby Price (backed by KTM) confirm people's belief that he would be Dakar's next rising star, Price blazing to a well won victory over the 318 kilometre stage in Chile from Antofagasta to Iquique, that too on his debut in Dakar. In the car category, Nasser Al-Attiyah extended his overall lead with his third stage win of the event. He now leads second-placed Giniel de Villiers by over 11 minutes.
The seventh stage four-wheel winner was Dakar newcomer Yazeed Al Rajhi, who excelled to take his first Dakar stage win. Barreda crashed heavily just past the halfway point of the stage, breaking his motorcycle's handlebars in two, allowing Marc Coma to surge forward. Barreda finished 12th on the stage, riding over 200 kilometres with just his right handle intact. Toby Price rounded off a solid top five finish.
Stage eight saw Marc Coma move up to the lead position overall in the motorcycle category, while Toby Price kept putting on a good show. Joan Barreda saw his dreams of a Dakar win dashed yet again, due to appalling weather conditions and a major setback in the previous stage. Female rider Lala Sanz finished strongly in the top five to move up to a ninth overall place.
The cars got a well-deserved rest from the rally action on the 8th day, and will join the rest of the field on the ninth stage as the Dakar rally moves to the grueling 450 kilometre run across the Atacama Desert.
Whatever the Dakar rally has in store for the competitors, at the end of the day, simply finishing is a heroic enough achievement. If you can survive the Dakar, you can pretty much survive anything.
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