No heat for Carlos Sainz

Between San Juan and San Rafael, the rally approached large plains overheated by the continental summer, which caused some mechanics to suffer. Apparently, at VW, we had prepared well, and none of the Race Touaregs experienced any problems. Having started quite far back in the peloton, following his punctures the day before, Sainz had no difficulty in overtaking the other competitors, the tracks being wide. The Madrilenian therefore won his second special stage of the rally, gaining almost a minute from Nasser Al Attiyah, while Mark Miller secured his third place.

« In this special we experienced extreme heat, to which we are not accustomed. We encountered a problem with the cooling of the shock absorbers, and they failed us at the end of the special, fortunately without losing us too much time. », explained a fairly experienced Stéphane Peterhansel. As for Guerlain Chicherit, he hit a stone at the start of the special, and broke a lower triangle. He had the spare part, but despite the help of his teammate Novitskiy and the Portuguese Leal Dos Santos, also on a BMW, he lost more than an hour and a half.

But as Sousa's Mitsubishi was experiencing "vapor look" problems, also due to the high heat, she also lost a lot of time. As a result, Chicherit retained his fifth place?

Last point to remember from this day, a huge crowd invaded the course, even forcing the organizers to eliminate the last six kilometers of the special, the finish being completely taken by storm. And on the 300 km route to San Rafael, the pilots had to navigate an enthusiastic crowd in each village they passed, driving at slow motion. Hence a very late arrival at the bivouac?