Dakar 2006: Volkswagen Motors - Leg 14
Volkswagen has second place in at the Dakar Rally in its sights after Giniel de Villiers again reduced the gap to the leader on the penultimate stage from Tambacounda to Dakar. The South African was 4 minutes 20 seconds quicker in his Race Touareg 2 than Mitsubishi driver Luc Alphand on the 634 kilometre stage. As a result, the second placed Volkswagen works driver reduced his deficit in the overall standings to 17 minutes 53 seconds before the final 31 kilometre beach stage on Sunday.
The best result of the day for Volkswagen was scored by Mark Miller, who recorded third fastest time behind the two BMW drivers Guerlain Chicherit and Alfie Cox. As fifth overall he reduced the gap to fourth placed Stéphane Peterhansel to exactly 3 minutes 1 second. Bruno Saby maintained eighth place, and Carlos Sainz eleventh place overall.

Kris Nissen - Volkswagen Motorsport Director :
Today`s result was quite unusual today owing to a mistake in the road book. Giniel was again quicker on today`s stage than overall leader Luc Alphand, who responded cleverly and simply followed Giniel. Such tactics are part and parcel of winning a rally.

N°301 - Bruno Saby :
There was a mistake in the road book today, which caused a lot of teams to get lost. It wasn`t so bad for us, since we have nothing really to loose in the overall classification. »

N°305 - Giniel de Villiers :
That was a great stage. I was running together in a group with Carlos Sainz and Luc Alphand. We all got lost together when the mistake in the road book cropped up – at least nobody suffered a disadvantage! Tina eventually found the way and the other two just followed us.

N°307 - Carlos Sainz :
We got lost at the point in the road book where there was a mistake. It seemed to take to eternity before we found the correct route again. There was a total of 21 zones with speed limits on the route.

N°309 - Mark Miller :
There was a Pro-Truck on its side at the 30 kilometre mark. Its driver was already waiting with a tow rope. To pull it onto its wheels again took us a minute. We are now in fifth place only three minutes behind Peterhansel – it wouldn`t have been enough to give us fourth.


Tags: volkswagen, dakar, bivouac, touareg, lac-rose, tambacounda,