G-Force Motorsport

Dakar 2013. Day 13. Finishing tomorrow!

Saturday, 19 January 2013 02:06

 

The Dakar 2013 last but one day presented the fans a stunner duel in cars between Robby Gordon and Guerlain Chicherit. These two guys were attacking each other through all the 380 kilometers of the distance. Although Gordon won, he bit off only 22 seconds from the rival.

The official review for the special shows the 3rd place for Giniel De Villiers but the results table reads with Orlando Terranova the third. And, what is more important for Russian fans, Leonid Novitsky and Konstantin Zhiltsov got back their 3rd place in overall. Nani Roma is less the 11 minutes behind and that means an interesting struggle for the line tomorrow!

It’s almost clear who takes the 1st and the 2nd places. Stephane Peterhansel is about 45 minutes ahead of De Villiers, the same for the margin between De Villiers and Novitskiy. But there’s the Dakar and whatever could happen… Especially when close to the finish.

 

G-Force Motorsport crews met the end of the day in a cheery mood and  on good positions. Boris Gadasin and Alexey Kuzmich (#348) finished 12th and Vladimir Vasilyev and Vitaliy Yevtyekhov (#331) came 14th.

 

Vladimir Vasilyev (driver #331): Today’s special was very good. There were either a fast part with lots of steering or sand. To tell the truth, we got stuck in a dune fissure: first we jumped over the dune, and there saw the dune splitted transversely, and we landed right onto this ridge, lost 10 minutes. But the rest was cool! Especially if there could be less dust… In the morning we followed KAMAZ for a while and the dust did not let us get closer to him. As we had reached him, he let us pass by.

Boris Gadasin (driver #348): It was one more very interesting special, in concept like yesterday’s one but a little bit more speedy, with rally-type tracks in the end, 3D and very fast. Generally, we were enjoying the special. We had some training in such sands yesterday so today we could drive more active. Our starting position was not very good – five trucks left right before us. We lost a lot of time for overtaking them because we tried not to take a risk, but the trucks were going so close one after another so after overtaking one of them we entered the dust cloud of another. About 100 kilometers this lasted, we caught up with three trucks, and then the surface changed to sand and we managed to overtake others.

Apart from that, the day was quite good, no technical problems, the rally is a great pleasure for us!

 

Dakar 2013 situation before the final stage:

In bikes “Chaleco” Lopez the brilliant made his compatriots happy with his win for the  home Chilean stage and took the second place in overall only 8 minutes behind Cyril Despres. For the last the matter is quite risky, although only one and not so long racing day left. And don’t forget Despres tradition to win the Dakar only in even years!

Bikes>>>

In quads the only fight that can take place is for the 3rd position between Rafal Sonik from Poland and the Argentinian Lucas Bonetto who is almost half an hour behind the rival. Marcos Patronelly could even walk t his victory as well could Ignacio Casale walk to his second position.

Quads>>>

Cars>>>

In trucks Andrey Karginov won the special again and forced Ayrat Mardeev let him the second place. The first three in overall like in famous “Tsar” time are KAMAZ, KAMAZ and more KAMAZ.

Trucks>>>

Video – Stage 13:

Tomorrow rally finishes in Santiago. But before the competitors see the finish podium, they have to go through the last challenge: 346 kilometers of special divided into two parts by a neutralization zone.

Follow the news!

G-Force Motorsport galleryVoice of Dakar on FreeDRIVE radio, championat.com

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