A tough sixth leg

338 kilometres through the desert - the Dakar Rally gathers momentum. The leg from Er Rachidia to Ouarzazate was pretty tough. Many holes, bumps and jumps meant you had to adapt your speed to put not too much stress on the car. We didn't have a single puncture so obviously, we were not bad at all.

Similar to some other top drivers, we were also imposed a time penalty after we exceeded the speed limit on a road section. A penalty is okay but I find that it was a pretty rigid penalty. For every kph we exceeded the tolerance we were imposed a penalty of one minute. At 3 kph this meant three minutes. We remain fourth but now we are trailing 4.35 minutes behind the leaders - 24 hours ago, it was just 1.17 minutes.

So now we have to make up for lost time. Tomorrow, we will start the first so-called marathon leg - this means 793 kilometres (thereof 351 stage kilometres) followed by a six-hour brake and another 752 kilometres (thereof 371 stage kilometres). 

From now on, the opposition is somewhat less stiff as Jean-Louis Schlesser, one of our main rivals, retired when his buggy burst into flames after a technical fault.

Find current results on the Dakar website or on the Mitsubishi website.