Tension and drama gripped the latest leg of the 2012 Dakar rally as a lot of riders including frontrunners Despres, Coma and Rodrigues got meted out fifteen minute penalties for an apparent engine setting violation.
Tension from the 2012 Dakar rally continued to hound the participants as the leading participants went head to head for the fight to gain first place. KTM’s Cyril Despres was initially declared the winner in the Antofagasta-Iquique stage when he was able to finish the 557-kilometer run ahead by four minutes of his main competitor Marc Coma. The jubilation for Despres was short lived as rally officials penalized him, Coma and twelve other riders by fifteen minutes.
The reason behind the penalty was quite murky as of this writing but initial conjecture seem to point to a possible violation of strict new engine policies the evening before. If the penalties were computed this would result to Yamaha’s Helder Rodrigues currently in third place to get the victory over Despres and Stefan Svitko the Slovakian rider.
The race began with Despres racing to make up for time against Coma after the disaster that was the 8th day. The route was changed due to expected weather conditions. During the checkpoint it seems that the Frenchman was leading with incredible pace even if he had to take some measures in open terrain with other riders. The day ended with Despres again with the lead by almost two and a half minutes over the closest rival.
Despres was noted to say that after the grueling events of the previous day, he began to have doubts but forced himself to perform and win for this latest leg. He says that he was very happy with the latest results.
Before the penalties were meted out it was the Spaniard Juan Barreda Bort that had the third best performance time after the finishing eight minutes behind Despres. Bort was able to get three minutes over Rodrigues but unfortunately had to be relegated to fifteenth place due to the penalties. It was only Svitko that seems to have benefited from the sanctions, as he was able to claim the last available spot on the podium.
Portugal’s Paulo Goncalves got the worst part of the business end from his main rival Rodrigues for the third spot. Although he was able to finish in less than four minutes, the penalty put him way back at seventh overall in the rankings. Frenchman David Casteau also had a difficult time in this leg as his dirt bike suffered an engine blowout.
The provisional results with the penalties computed resulted in Helder Rodrigues coming in 1st, 3rd overall, Cyril Despres 2nd, 1st overall, Marc Coma at 6th but 2nd overall and Joan Barreda Bort 9th and 16th overall.