Dakar Rally Stage 12 results
Dakar Rally Media - Jan 14, 2011

Stage 12 was won by Marc Coma followed by Cyril Despres, Helder Rodrigues, Francisco Lopez Contardo, and Quinn Alexis Cody.

The overall lead remains in the grip of Marc Coma. Positions 2 through 5 are held by Despres, Contardo, Rodrigues, and Pedrero Garcia.

Ninety-four motorcycle riders started the Stage from San Juan to Cordoba. The bike race was dominated by Marc Coma in spite of a last hurrah from a Cyril Despres hungry for time to regain. The Catalan biker wins his 5th special of the year and has a lead of more than 16 minutes in the general standings.

At the end of the day, Despres had this to say; “I had to go on the attack, it's a bit second nature for me anyway, so I've been going for it since the first kilometre, even if I slowed a bit at the end. At least it's good to not have any regrets. I gave it everything I had and it was a long day. It must have rained a lot last night because the tracks were churned up with lots of mud. It was hellish. My chances are looking slimmer though. After a day like that with 555 km to cover and opportunities to open up gaps, we more or less cancelled each other out. Mind you, it's not the end of the world, you know, you have to keep things in perspective”.

Coma is looking forward to Stage 13; “Today was complicated due to all the rain that fell last night. As a result, it was a very technical stage, like in endurance racing. But it went fine. There is still a 190-km stage left to race tomorrow. Normally, there shouldn't be any complications, but we still need to race them, it's there to be done. It just shows that the route has been designed to ensure that there is suspense up to the end, so we'll just have to wait and see tomorrow”.

For this penultimate stage between San Juan and Cordoba, the organizers decided to send the trucks out first along a shorter route than the other competitors, covering the second half of the car, bike and quad special, for a total distance of 318 km.

It was with the bit between his teeth and well aware that today would probably be his last chance that Cyril Despres set off this morning. With the disadvantage of opening the road, the KTM biker still manage to produce a festival of riding. His lead over the general standings leader Marc Coma even reached more than 2'30 after 240 km. Perhaps the Frenchman had in mind the misfortune suffered by the Catalan who lost everything in the space of a second whilst leading the race in 2007, hitting a tree near Tambacounda two days before the end of the rally.

However, there were no mishaps for Coma today. The general standings leader rode a clean special, looking after his machine and avoiding navigation errors before attacking on the stage's finish. As a result, the Spaniard made up for the time lost to Despres and won the special, his 5th since the start of the rally. It is his 16th stage triumph on the Dakar, one more than the late and lamented Richard Sainct. Behind this elite pair, Helder Rodrigues limited the damage in third position, more than 8 minutes behind the day's winner.

The other notable performance of the day came from American Quinn Cody on his Honda 450. The leading “rookie” on the Dakar picked up a fine 5th place just behind “Chaleco” Lopez.

In the general standings, Marc Coma now holds a lead of 16'36 over Despres, nearly 1 hour over Lopez and 1 hour 42 minutes over Rodrigues.