Carlos Sainz increases his lead

Like the day before, Carlos Sainz was the fastest in today's special connecting Cordoba to San Miguel de Tucuman: 324 km covered in 3h11'28" despite further showers and still some problems for the leading Race Touareg. “Another very difficult stage to negotiate,” said the Spaniard at the end of the stage. “I still suffered from problems with the windshield wipers not working. For about ten kilometers, I couldn't see anything and I had to drive very slowly. I don’t understand why we had this problem again, because last night the mechanics checked everything.”

His teammate Nasser Al-Attiyah, at the end of the stage, was 1'03 behind. Like his leader, the Qatari pilot experienced some problems. “Yesterday we experienced a problem which recurred on this special. We lost a lot of power over the last hundred kilometers. I don't know what it is due to, probably the water. We really need to resolve this problem because we are wasting a lot of time. I'm happy to be at this level for now, but tomorrow will be a very different day.

The Frenchman Stéphane Peterhansel nevertheless retains his 2nd place overall with 3'05" behind Sainz and is waiting for more difficult stages to try to make the difference. “It's not easy to try to keep up with Sainz's pace who, in very technical parts, is slightly faster than us. We may have to wait for the desert to find the fault,” he confided upon his arrival.

At the wheel of his Mini All4, Guerlain Chicherit was spared technical problems today and gained numerous places in the general classification. “The car ran really well. Unfortunately, we had a somewhat distant starting order. As a result, we had to overtake a lot of cars.” This evening, the Savoyard moved up from 78th place to 23rd.

Today, two important competitors lost big podium hopes. Starting with the American Mark Miller, who rolled over with his Race Touareg. “It was raining this morning, then the ground dried out. In a corner we understeered and I could no longer control the car. We rolled over before we could get back on the track.” For him, the race will no doubt now come down to helping his teammates who are better ranked than him...
His compatriot Robby Gordon experienced a similar mishap when he left the track and remained stuck for a long time. It took the intervention of the public and several vehicles to get him out of this mess. This evening, they are respectively in 16th and 21st place in the general classification, one hour behind the leaders…