Thoughts during the Rest Day

As you know, the rally is split into two halves traditionally by a rest day. Despite having driven eight of the fourteen legs so far, I don't feel having reached the stage of mid-rally yet. On Saturday, I explained you why I thought the eighth leg was the first proper Dakar leg at all. As the forthcoming tracks in Mauritania will be much more demanding than the previous legs, everything is possible. Still, there were so many opponents who more or less dramatically dropped out of contention. There is no more Schlesser-Buggy in the race, whilst Grégoire de Mevius lost plenty of time. Personally, I think this is a pity. Stéphane Peterhansel is already trailing 1h25m behind the leader. Mitsubishi and Nissan had a fantastic fight on a high level. I believe that the retirements were due to the unusually high speed on the stages in Morocco.

As for the question whether we've made a mistake as we lost already 26 minutes: I don't think that - apart from accidents or technical problems we will be able to beat Hiroshi masuoka fair and square on the remaining legs. Still, I believe that our tactics were completely correct. 17 of the 26 minutes we are back had been caused by a broken prop shaft although we didn't risk everything on that stage. As Mitsubishi hasn't issued any team orders so far, every driver can choose his own approach. And our tactics is not to risk everything. If you're jumping over every dune at full speed you risk to roll or get stuck in a hole behind the top of the dune, so you can easily lose an hour or even be out of contention. We prefer to look after the car and watch what will be happening in Mauritania. On Monday, for instance, there will be the first of two legs without GPS navigation so the classification can easily change dramatically. Keep following the rally - the most exciting week for you and us is still to come.

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