On a short stage, made extremely complicated by recent rain, Red Bull AMV KTM rider Kurt Caselli took his second stage victory ahead of Paulo Goncalves with Red Bull KTM rider Cyril Despres third. Overall Cyril increases his lead on his team mate Ruben Faria to 13’15 with third placed man Chaleco Lopez now at 18’03.
Cyril Despres: “Today was not a day to win the Dakar but definitely a day to lose it. Something always happens at Fiambala and this year it was no exception, with the weather once again taking the starring role. When we started off it was pretty hot, and then we went into the mountains where it was so foggy I couldn’t get my bearings. After that we came down again and it started to rain really heavily with a lot of water in the riverbeds. About 6 of us grouped up, me, Caselli, Goncalves, Pedrero, Barreda… and then Kurt and I broke from the others about 60 kilometres from the end. Kurt was riding ‘Baja style’, jumping off everything and gave me a great ‘tow’ to the end. In the end the day turned out much better than expected.”
