Dakar Rally
January 5, 2010
French BMW driver Stephane Peterhansel has won the third stage of the Dakar Rally, finishing the course from La Rioja to Fiambala in just under three hours. The victory helped Peterhansel bump two-time rally champion Carlos Sainz and his co-driver Lucas Cruz into second place.
Sainz's Volkswagen teammates, German driver Timo Gottschalk and co-driver Nasser Al-Attiyah from Qatar, scooped up third place.
In the motorcycle division, Cyril Despres of France won top spot for KTM, finishing the stage in just over three hours. Portuguese rider Helder Rodriguez came in just over 10 minutes behind him for Yamaha, securing second place.
'Real start' of Dakar
VW motorsport director Kris Nissen said Monday the Dakar rally "has really started today."
"We were a bit surprised, how hard it actually was and how slow the average speed was on the course," he said. But with Carlos Sainz in second place and two other VW teams in third and fourth, Nissen says the team has good reason to be confident.
The fourth stage of the race will take place Tuesday, with a 629 kilometer stretch across the Andes Mountains and the Argentina-Chile border at an altitude of more than 4,000 meters, followed by 203 km through the Atacama Desert. The ending point will be in Copiapo, near the north of Chile.
The Dakar Rally is considered the most dangerous motorsport event in the world. During the second stage on Sunday, German driver Mirco Schultis lost control of his car and ploughed into a group of spectators, killing a 28-year-old woman.
mk/dpa/SID
Editor: Darren Mara