Peugeot chasing Han at China Silk Road Rally

The China Silk Road Rally, 13 stages long, began this Sunday August 30 with a first stage linking Xi'An and Zhongwei. The Peugeot 2008 DKR 2015 of Stéphane Peterhansel and Cyril Despres are behind the Haval Wei Han. But the gaps are small since the leader of the event only has 7 seconds ahead of the multiple winner of the Dakar.

“It was a special stage to warm up after a long 565 kilometer liaison”, commented Stéphane Peterhansel who opened the road ahead of Christian Lavieille (Haval), the last winner of the event. “It feels good to drive in racing condition with the advanced 2008 DKR. It?s very pleasing to see that the development work has borne fruit. The car is easier and more pleasant. The engine starts up well. The race is long, we set off at an observation pace. We encountered a problem with the organization's GPS. A little stress but on this stage it wasn't serious. Tomorrow we will have 100% sand. Starting 2nd is the almost perfect scenario.”

Cyril Despres follows at just over a minute, preceding Haval by almost 2 minutes, Christian Lavieille. “I had fun”, recognizes the Peugeot driver “We had to avoid two pitfalls on this fairly technical stage in the canyons. First of all the small round stones on the track which are quite slippery and the large ones on each side of the track. You couldn't get out of it otherwise you would get a puncture. This is what happened to Christian Lavieille 9 kilometers from the finish. We were bothered by its dust. With David (Castera, his co-driver), it was our first special together. I had the same GPS problem as Stéphane, enough to add some atmosphere! »

Provisional classification SS1

Han (Haval) 1.23.25
Peterhansel (PEUGEOT 2008 DKR) 1.23.32
Despres/Castera (PEUGEOT 2008 DKR) 1.25.04
Lavieille (Haval) 1.26.58
Liu (Panda) 1.28.21?