Dakar Stage 11: Loeb down to the wire
 |
| Loeb is not shaving until the Rally is over |
The last long drive, the last sand dunes – and the last chance to make an impression at Dakar Rally 2017. Friday saw competitors cover 759 kilometers from San Juan to Rio Cuarto in Argentina.
With Saturday’s final stage only 64km long, there shouldn’t be much room for any major upset before the finish in Buenos Aires. But Sebastien Loeb sent a strong message to his French rival nonetheless…
Car
Having won Thursday’s stage, Stephane Peterhansel opened the road three minutes before Loeb. But the rally-like tracks of the Cordoba area seemed to suit Loeb, a man with nine WRC world titles, and he overtook his teammate early in the day to win in Rio Cuarto. Orly Terranova completed Friday’s podium (+6'37) with Toyota driver Giniel de Villiers in fourth (+7’01).
But Loeb’s 18-second lead is not enough to pass Peterhansel in the overall standings. “Mister Dakar" could very well win his 13th title on Saturday. And with Loeb currently second overall (+5’32) and Cyril Despres third (+32’54), a Team Peugeot Total podium is looking more and more likely.
"We won the stage but we wanted more," said Loeb. “We gave everything we had and gained some time back during the first part. But we had a puncture at the beginning of the second one…
[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]"It’s been a great battle, it was good to fight within seconds. We couldn’t have done more."
Stephane Peterhansel Overall: 1st
Our fight with Sebastien today was extremely close. We lost some of our lead during the first part of the stage but Sebastien’s puncture at the beginning of the second section allowed us to make up most of the ground we had lost. The last stage of the rally tomorrow is quite short. We will work on our strategy this evening. Anything can still happen but I feel confident because our 3008DKR has run like clockwork so far.
Sebastien Loeb Overall: 2nd
Our day started well. We were aware that the terrain was favorable to us and we pushed hard in order to try to close the gap to Stephane. We lost our advantage when we punctured through the first corner of the second part of the stage. It was so frustrating! We kept pushing and completed the stage in Stephane’s dust. The aim after that was to avoid taking any risks and make sure we got the car to the finish.
Cyril Despres Overall: 3rd
It turned out to be a quiet day for us. We started out this morning with a big cushion over the fourth-placed car and our aim was to keep out of trouble and nurse our car to the finish. We had a reasonably good run and the second part of the stage was interesting. I even started to see myself as a WRC driver!
Bike
 |
| The leaders Peterhansel (L) and Loeb (R) chat after the stage |
Joan Barreda has now won Stage 11. The race organizers gave him three minutes back as he had been obstructed by spectators during the special. That’s his third consecutive stage win.
As a result, Portuguese rider Paulo Goncalves took second and Adrien Van Beveren from France third.
Nothing that would bother Sam Sunderland though – having taken fifth this Friday, the British rider still leads overall. His first Dakar victory is closer than ever.
On Friday night, Sunderland is 33’09 ahead of his KTM teammate Matthias Walkner and 37’10 ahead of Van Beveren. Arrived 10th in Rio Cuarto, Walkner now needs to defend his second place in the general rankings. But he can count on Sunderland.
“During the second part, I knew Matthias was behind me and he is fighting for a second so I didn’t want to make dust for it and I cruised a bit and let him go by in the speed zone, just following him," explained the race leader.
“There is still one stage to go though. I won’t let myself believe it until it’s done."
Stefan Svitko had been taken to the hospital on Thursday after finishing the stage in a state of exhaustion, yet the Slovak rider showed up on the start line on Friday morning and finished in ninth place.
Joan Barreda
Today has been a good stage, where I opened the way throughout. There were very many kilometers and hours on the bike. It’s always a fatigue and an over-exertion to have to open the track two days running. In the San Juan part there were tracks and pot-holed areas. In the public area they had cordoned off one section and I knew I had to go right but the tape put me off and I went left and then had to double back on my tracks. The public distracted me for a moment and I lost the direction for a couple of minutes. In the final part there was navigation and rutted track for the part of the World Rally Championship. There were a lot of public and animals on the track. It was important to stay very focused.
Quad
Russia’s Sergey Karyakin won his second consecutive stage more than 20 minutes before second-placed Daniel Domaszewski from Argentina, confirming his overall lead.
Truck
Overall leader Eduard Nikolaev from Kamaz Team won a second consecutive stage in Rio Cuarto, beating the Argentinean driver Federico Villagra by only 52 seconds.
Overall Standings
Cars Top-10
| Pos. | No. | Name | Mark | Time | variation | Penalty |
| 1 | 300 | PETERHANSEL (FRA) , COTTRET (FRA) | PEUGEOT | 28:20:16 | – | – |
| 2 | 309 | LOEB (FRA) , ELENA (MCO) | PEUGEOT | 28:25:48 | 00:05:32 | – |
| 3 | 307 | DESPRES (FRA) , CASTERA (FRA) | PEUGEOT | 28:53:10 | 00:32:54 | – |
| 4 | 305 | ROMA (ESP) , HARO BRAVO (ESP) | TOYOTA | 29:35:57 | 01:15:41 | – |
| 5 | 302 | DE VILLIERS (ZAF) , VON ZITZEWITZ (DEU) | TOYOTA | 30:09:53 | 01:49:37 | – |
| 6 | 308 | TERRANOVA (ARG) , SCHULZ (DEU) | MINI | 30:11:56 | 01:51:40 | – |
| 7 | 316 | PRZYGONSKI (POL) , COLSOUL (BEL) | MINI | 32:33:14 | 04:12:58 | – |
| 8 | 318 | DUMAS (FRA) , GUEHENNEC (FRA) | PEUGEOT | 32:42:58 | 04:22:42 | – |
| 9 | 320 | RAUTENBACH (ZWE) , HOWIE (ZAF) | TOYOTA | 32:59:48 | 04:39:32 | – |
| 10 | 322 | ABU-ISSA (QAT) , PANSERI (FRA) | MINI | 33:11:06 | 04:50:50 | – |
Bikes Top-10
| Pos. | No. | Name | Mark | Time | variation | Penalty |
| 1 | 14 | SUNDERLAND (GBR) | KTM | 31:34:11 | – | – |
| 2 | 16 | WALKNER (AUT) | KTM | 32:07:20 | 00:33:09 | 00:05:00 |
| 3 | 8 | FARRES GUELL (ESP) | KTM | 32:11:33 | 00:37:22 | – |
| 4 | 6 | VAN BEVEREN (FRA) | YAMAHA | 32:12:21 | 00:38:10 | 00:01:00 |
| 5 | 11 | BARREDA BORT (ESP) | HONDA | 32:18:43 | 00:44:32 | 00:58:01 |
| 6 | 17 | GONCALVES (PRT) | HONDA | 32:26:57 | 00:52:46 | 00:48:20 |
| 7 | 31 | RENET (FRA) | HUSQVARNA | 32:30:12 | 00:56:01 | – |
| 8 | 67 | CAIMI (ARG) | HONDA | 33:15:04 | 01:40:53 | 01:05:00 |
| 9 | 5 | RODRIGUES (PRT) | YAMAHA | 33:34:57 | 02:00:46 | 00:00:27 |
| 10 | 27 | RODRIGUES (PRT) | HERO SPEEDBRAIN | – | – | – |
Trucks Top-10
| Pos. | No. | Name | Mark | Time | variation | Penalty |
| 1 | 505 | NIKOLAEV (RUS) , YAKOVLEV (RUS) , RYBAKOV (RUS) | KAMAZ | 27:23:59 | – | – |
| 2 | 513 | SOTNIKOV (RUS) , AKHMADEEV (RUS) , LEONOV (RUS) | KAMAZ | 27:41:08 | 00:17:09 | – |
| 3 | 500 | DE ROOY (NLD) , TORRALLARDONA (ESP) , RODEWALD (POL) | IVECO | 28:02:57 | 00:38:58 | – |
| 4 | 502 | VILLAGRA (ARG) , YACOPINI (ARG) , TORLASCHI (ARG) | IVECO | 28:22:38 | 00:58:39 | – |
| 5 | 501 | MARDEEV (RUS) , BELYAEV (RUS) , SVISTUNOV (RUS) | KAMAZ | 29:50:16 | 02:26:17 | – |
| 6 | 522 | VASILEVSKI (BLR) , VIKHRENKA (BLR) , ZAPAROSHCHANKA (BLR) | MAZ | 29:56:19 | 02:32:20 | – |
| 7 | 503 | LOPRAIS (CZE) , STROSS (CZE) , TOMANEK (CZE) | TATRA | 30:27:40 | 03:03:41 | – |
| 8 | 516 | SUGAWARA (JPN) , SUGIURA (JPN) | HINO | 30:35:43 | 03:11:44 | – |
| 9 | 504 | STACEY (NLD) , VAN DER VAET (BEL) , KUPPER (NLD) | MAN | 31:06:05 | 03:42:06 | – |
| 10 | 518 | MACIK (CZE) , TOMASEK (CZE) , MRKVA (CZE) | LIAZ | 31:16:36 | 03:52:37 | 00:20:00 |
Quads Top-10
| Pos. | No. | Name | Mark | Time | variation | Penalty |
| 1 | 254 | KARYAKIN (RUS) | YAMAHA | 38:36:55 | – | – |
| 2 | 251 | CASALE (CHL) | YAMAHA | 39:53:19 | 01:16:24 | – |
| 3 | 263 | COPETTI (ARG) | YAMAHA | 42:58:01 | 04:21:06 | 00:15:00 |
| 4 | 250 | SONIK (POL) | YAMAHA | 44:09:56 | 05:33:01 | 00:23:00 |
| 5 | 280 | DUTRIE (FRA) | YAMAHA | 44:21:59 | 05:45:04 | 00:15:00 |
| 6 | 262 | DA COSTA (FRA) | YAMAHA | 44:34:27 | 05:57:32 | 01:01:00 |
| 7 | 261 | HANSEN (ARG) | HONDA | 44:34:55 | 05:58:00 | 00:13:30 |
| 8 | 257 | SANABRIA GALEANO (PRY) | YAMAHA | 44:49:02 | 06:12:07 | 00:20:00 |
| 9 | 258 | DOMASZEWSKI (ARG) | HONDA | 45:17:31 | 06:40:36 | 00:22:00 |
| 10 | 284 | WIÅšNIEWSKI (POL) | CAN AM | 46:41:57 | 08:05:02 | 00:06:00 |