Rally Most liked posts in thread: Dakar 2018

I've been busy and dropped the ball on updates. Will try to catch up a bit. If you haven't kept up elsewhere, "El Matador" (Carlos Sainz) finally got his second overall win in the cars category. Since they said this would be their last year, that means Peugeot got he win in their final Dakar.

P2: Nasser Al-Attiyah - Toyota (+43m40s)
P3: Giniel De Villiers - Toyota (+1h16m41s)

The X-Raid Mini team had one of their worst years ever with the top driver, Garafulic, at P13, nearly 13 hours from the lead. Hirvonen was next at P19 and +16 hours.

Out of 335 starters (I think), 157 were withdrawn for one reason or another before the final stage.

I know they didn't do well, but I like this pic. I think it's Hirvonen. Come to think of it, P19 might not be so bad for this buggy's first year.

 

The dunes are hungry this year.

 

It's rest day at the Dakar.

 

The site's back up so time to catch up this thread.

 

Here's the tally of abandons at the halfway point:

29/139 bikes
8/49 quads
31/103 cars & SxS
14/44 trucks

That works out to about 25% abandon rate leaving 253/335 (75%) still in the race.

 

One surprise is the BMW/MINI funded effort this year will include a 2-wheel drive category buggy entry. Looks like this:

 

Yup, it's a branding and advertising exercise, much like how Peugeot's buggies bear little resemblance to their cars.

 

The opening stage was described as a sprint and only 31km. Sebastian Loeb fell well down the leader board (P27, -5m37s) because of a mechanical problem (brakes).

Toyotas fill the top two spots, P1: Al-Atiyyah, P2: Ten Brinke.

P3 is held by a Borgward, whatever that is.

The first MINI is P4 and driven by an American rookie named Menzies. That, by the way, is the funky buggy version MINI as well.

Column 1	Column 2	Column 3	Column 4	Column 5	Column 6
Position	#	Driver	Brand/Team	Time	Gap
1	301	N. AL-ATTIYAH	TOYOTA	000:21:51
2	309	B. TEN BRINKE	TOYOTA	000:22:16	00:00:25
3	313	N. FUCHS	BORGWARD	000:22:25	00:00:34
4	310	B. MENZIES	MINI	000:22:29	00:00:38
5	302	N. ROMA	MINI	000:22:44	00:00:53
6	304	G. DE VILLIERS	TOYOTA	000:22:45	00:00:54
7	318	L. ALVAREZ	TOYOTA	000:23:03	00:01:12
8	305	M. HIRVONEN	MINI	000:23:27	00:01:36
9	312	J. PRZYGONSKI	MINI	000:23:36	00:01:45
10	311	M. PROKOP	FORD	000:23:55	00:02:04