Dakar Rally, Stage 3, San Rafael to San Juan
Dakar Rally Media - Jan 10, 2012

Cyril Despres, already a winner in San Juan on the Dakar's last visit in 2010, won again today, taking advantage of a major navigational error by Marc Coma to take the lead in the general standings.

Endurance alone is not sufficient without a little attention to detail.  On the Dakar’s third stage, this point was proved by Cyril Despres, who took command of the general standings and won the day's stage by remaining calm and collected.

In terms of performance, his confrontation with Marc Coma for a long time seemed like a game of ping-pong: advantage to the Frenchman by 20 seconds at CP1, then to the Spaniard by 14 seconds after 117 km. The likelihood of a slender victory for one rider or the other seemed to grow as the stage went on.

However, opening the road is never an easy task. At the junction between the routes dedicated to the bikes/quads and the cars/trucks, after 164 kilometres of racing, Coma made the wrong choice and followed the car/truck route for more than 4 kilometres. Despite his efforts to try and make up for this lost time, his about-turn cost him 13 minutes at the finishing line.  

Reflecting, Coma said: "After 170 km, there was a different track for the bikes and the cars. I checked the road-book and thought I was on the right track, but then I saw that wasn't the case, because the next note was after 8 km and it wasn't correct, so I turned round! 16 km is a lot! So, after that, I went on the attack to tray and gain back some time, but today was a difficult day, even if the scenery was spectacular... Well, in the end, I've lost 13 minutes. It's a lot, but when you make a mistake, you shouldn't be surprised that the gaps open up. That's racing for you. Yesterday was my day, but today definitely wasn't!"

On completion of this 27th special stage victory, Cyril Despres now finds himself leading the rally with an advantage of 10'12” over his biggest rival.

The brave challengers to Coma and Despres once again had to admit that there is a chasm separating them from the two men. In the end, Frans Verhoeven picked up 2nd place on the day's special. The performance was encouraging for the new Sherco that he is riding, but the Dutchman still came in 8'37” behind Despres, whilst Paulo Gonçalves took only 2 seconds more. More importantly, the lesson about being calm and collected, two essential qualities on the Dakar, was a tough one for two pretenders to the podium, who will be leaving the rally by the back door; or rather by his assistance truck for Jakub Przygonsky, whose engine blew after 68 km, and by the medical helicopter for Quinn Cody, who broke his collar bone following a spectacular fall after 173 km of the special stage.(