Rally-Raid – Peterhansel takes the lead in the China Silk Road Rally

After an opening stage at the China Silk Road Rally where Han Wei (Haval) took the lead, Stephane Peterhansel responded on the second day where the competitors linked Zhongwei to Alxa Zuoqi. Despite a crash which cost him several minutes, the pilot Peugeot signed the scratch with a time of 1h19'09, one minute ahead of his teammate Cyril Despres who stopped to lend a hand to the new leader. This is the first stage victory for the 2008 DKR.

?Today it wasn?t long but technical and really not easy. Just look at the hourly average: 1h20 to do 63km”, underlines Stéphane Peterhansel. “A lot of crossings were on the menu and the “carrying” quality of the sand and dunes made it possible to pass without incident. We went off track, perhaps due to low tire pressure, and the “Saint Bernard Despres” stopped to help us! We only lost 4 minutes changing the wheel. It was the first stage in the dunes since the Dakar and we really appreciated the engine changes with the recovery at low revs. Even almost stopped it starts again."

Cyril Despres was the closest to the reference time, ahead of Han Wei by 50 seconds. The Frenchman finds himself half a minute behind the Chinese. “Small or large dunes everywhere, in every direction? It looked like the Copiapo special at the Dakar, except that we didn't have 10km to cover with this difficulty but 50! », comments the second Peugeot driver. « We gave Stéphane a helping hand so that he wasted a minimum of time with its wheel change and then rolled together before taking two different options… I must admit that the 2008 DKR has made real progress in this area. Without attacking too much, we rode well. It's very good to do a double. »

Provisional classification ES2
1. Peterhansel/Cottret (PEUGEOT 2008 DKR) 1.19.09
2. Despres/Castera (PEUGEOT 2008 DKR) 1.20.01
3. Han Wei (Haval) 1.20.51
4. Liu Kun (Panda) 1.24.53
5. Liu Yangui (Panda) 1.24.53
6. Lavieille (Haval) 1.28.50?

Provisional general classification
1. Peterhansel/Cottret (PEUGEOT 2008 DKR) 2.42.41
2. Han (Haval) +1?35
3. Despres/Castera (PEUGEOT 2008 DKR) +2?04?.