G-Force Motorsport

Dakar 2013. Day 4 – all in one

Wednesday, 09 January 2013 00:08

Carlos Sainz gets his 20 minutes back and gets… stopped by some technical issues. Gerard De Roy’s fear was not in vain. Ales Loprais appeals to his truck to reach the finish line. Robby Gordon turns upside down. G-Force Motorsport chases pelicans along the beach and finishes as planned. KAMAZ is on top.

To begin with Krzysztof Hołowczyc, his manager Andrzej Kalitowiczsays reports: Medical examinations in Lima proved the primary diagnosis of the ribs broken and an injury of one spinal bone in the thoracic spine. Also another two spinal bones are under suspection, they were injured long ago during Pharaons Rally in 200. Today Krzysztof was transferred to a private clinic that provided better opportunities. Source>>>

And now come all in one. It’s a paradox but over the night the results changed again. The officials examined the GPS devices set up in Carlos Sainz’s car and proved the fact that one GPS did not work properly. But the other was right in order, so the official’s previous decision was cancelled and el Matador got back his 20 minutes!

It seems now to be unnecessary because new technical problems stopped Sainz at 147 km of the track. The loss of 2 hours and 36 minutes pushed him far down in standings.

The first to finish was Nasser Al-Attiyah again (#300): We are so happy to finish today without any problems or mistakes, so I am really quite happy. Tomorrow I don't think it will be difficult. Maybe we will lose a bit of time, but I think tomorrow it doesn't matter if we lose a little or not because I will try and keep it tight until we cross into Chile. Chile will be good for our car. I'm so happy to be close to Peterhansel.

Stephan Peterhansel (#302) is leading in overall but he is very careful: For the moment, we're just focused on our position, avoiding making navigation errors or driving mistakes and we haven't had any technical problems with the car, so it's going really well. What's more, we've seen one more of our rivals fall by the wayside today. After Holowczyc yesterday, Gordon eliminated himself from the battle for victory today. I don't want to end up in the same situation as those drivers, so I prefer to hold back a little. It's always a question of strategy: you need to know when to keep a little back and when to take risks. For the moment, it's not going too badly for us.

Alas for Robby Gordon who cannot boast for the same. His Hammer landed on the roof after a jump from 5 meters high dune at 30 km. Tomorrow we’ll know if he stayed in the race.

G-Force Motorsport crews #348 and #331 (pilots Boris Gadasin and Vladimir Vasilyev respectively) reached today’s finish line without any incidents. They kept driving in calm and steady pace. The crews had great impressions from the track of the day, especially for the riding along the very edge of water.

Boris Gadasin/Alexey Kuzmich (#348): 15th position of the day

Vladimir Vasilyev/Vitaly Yevtyekhov (#331): 21st position on SS4

Us usual every day new samples of engine oil are taken. They will be sent for examination to Gazpromneft – Lubricants. After Dakar 2013 finishes we’ll ask the company about the results of the examinations.

Still we have no information about the issues the third crew of the team experiences. By 2 a.m. (Moscow time) Andrey Cherednikov and Albert Horn were still somewhere on the track.

Car standins after 4 stages>>>

Nothing serious happened to the bikes and quads standings. Though yesterday’s leader Cyril Despres lost 17 minutes today and let Olivier Pain to lead the day, the first to finish the special was the Spaniard Joan Barreda Bort (#5): After a bad day yesterday, when I broke the spokes of my wheel and lost heaps of time, I rode very well today. I started from far back and was able to go on the attack from the beginning to the end. Nothing is lost yet, so I'm going to fight every day to move back to the front.

Bikes standings>>>

The Argentinian Marcos Patronelly (#250) became the winner of the special in quads and continues to increase his margin in the standings: It really was a difficult stage, quite complicated especially when we had the sun in our faces. There was also lots of fesh-fesh. It was difficult. But it was such a beautiful stage, I'd almost like to come back here! The big descent was wonderful, very long. At times the stage was really magnificent. There was a ten-kilometre section alongside the beach, which was nice too. After that, there were lots of little tracks that were very rocky and the quad was bouncing from side to side. In the end, it was a tiring stage and now there is a long way to get to the bivouac.

Quads standings after day 4>>>

Gerard De Rooy’s (#500) yesterday fears proved true: two punctures at once and in addition getting suck in sand led him down to the 7th line of the day. But in overall he is only 1 minute behind the new leader who is Ales Loprais, the Czech (#503). Though Loprais had a chance not to finish the special: We had a big problem because 100 km before the finish my front suspension broke. I had an oil leak so we really had to slow down. The two KAMAZ trucks passed us so I was praying just to finish the stage. I was stroking the steering wheel saying 'You have to survive, my lady'... I'm really happy we are here because if the stage was longer by one kilometre or ten or fifteen it would have been over because the front suspension is broken. So, we have to repair it and today we were really on the limits, but that is the Dakar.

And the real hero of the day was the KAMAZ-Master team! The first at finish was Ayrat Mardeev (#505), Andrey Karghinov (#510) the second. Hans Stacey (#504) managed to press Eduard Nikolaev from the 3rd down to the 4th line (probably it’s a sort of a miracle!).

Ayrat Mardeev (#505): It was a very interesting special, with sand, rocks and a track that was sometimes wound around a lot. At the start we overtook Pieter Versluis and after that we saw Miki Biaision's truck on its side. Then we overtook Loprais. In the mountains, we saw De Rooy, but he was heading in the other direction. Over the whole day, we didn't have any mechanical problems or navigation problems and we only lost a tiny bit of time on a tricky part with ruts on it. In general, it was a superb special stage.

Trucks standings after 4 days>>>

What about tomorrow? The official site predicts… more than 3000 kilometers of liaison for cars! Sure it’s a mistake, but if really?...

The fact is that tomorrow the competitors will be divided in two parts. That lets the riders have a rest from the drivers and vice versa. Bikes and quads will ride this part of the way as a special:

 

While cars and trucks will start the shorter but more complicated special:

Follow the news! And we hope the results stop changing in the middle of the night.

 

Photo: www.dakar.com, Michail Lastochkin and G-Force Motorsport

Official photogallery, Championat.com, Voice of Dakar on FreeDRIVE