Roma, first leader in Cordoba

Shortened by 50 km due to an impassable ford, the first special stage of the Dakar, 199 km long, was “swallowed” by Nani Roma in 2h11:15. The Catalan driver was ahead Carlos Sainz from 2?07?? and his teammate Stéphane Peterhansel of 2?50??.

“This event was quite winding, with sections in the mountains. As we started in fifth position, there were already a few stones on the trajectory thrown out by our competitors, so we had to be careful to stay in the middle of the road,” explained Nani Roma. “We had no problems, and we quickly realized that we would be well classified at the finish, because we were back in the dust of Sainz and Gordon. But we took no risks, our racing pace was very reasonable, and consistent with our strategy established at the start. I'm also happy for Peterhansel, he couldn't have gone any faster because he was also riding in De Villiers' dust. He did a good job.”

On the Volkswagen side, we handled the situation calmly, still classifying three cars in the top five places: Sainz second, Al Attiyah fourth and De Villiers fifth. Finally, the first of the Mitsubishi Racing Lancers of the JMB Stradale Off Road team was that of Carlos Sousa, classified in eleventh place.