SONANGOL AFRICA ECO Race hits the road to Mauritania

In the end, Martin FONTYN imposed on two wheels and retook the lead in the rally whilst Jean Louis SCHLESSER and Anton SHIBALOV reinforced their advance in the car and lorry categories.

Friday evening at the daily briefing, Ren METGE reminded us that Mauritania is a fabulous but pitiless land. The race Director of the Sonangol Africa Eco Race couldn't underline this fact enough. The 7th stage between Chami and Akjoujt did it's damage to the rally caravan. This morning, a slight sandy wind swept across the start line, not far from the Chami camp. Around fifteen minutes separated Jean Louis SCHLESSER and Jrme PELICHET overall. The leader expected to have a difficult day whilst his opponent hoped that his four wheel drive TOYOTA Pick Up would give him the advantage when following the Sonangol buggy in the sand. Unfortuntely for PELICHET, things didn't quite go to plan and Jean Louis SCHLESSER took his 5th victory in 6 Specials. Jrme PELICHET was delayed when he got stuck in the sand four times and only managed to cross the finish line in 15th position, 2:4731 from the leader.

A poor performance that took him down to 4th place overall behind the KAMAZ of Anton SHIBALOV and the HUMMER of Miroslav ZAPLETAL. The best performance of the day in the car class was from Anton GRIGOROV in the OSCAR. The Russian finished 4th, only 1729'' behind SCHLESSER. He got ahead of Guillaume JORDA, who looked fast in his RMA buggy and finished in a respectable 5th place on this extremely difficult stage. Cyril ESQUIROL, the co-pilot of Jean Louis SCHLESSER explained:

"This was an extremely difficult Special that was very tiring with complicated navigation. There was a lot of sand and wind over arduous terrain consisting of difficult sections that included camel grass and soft sand. We lost about ten minutes when we planted the nose of the buggy into the base of a dune. We were surprised to win the Special because we saw the KAMAZ in the camel grass going flat out. It was impressive."

We should also mention some great buggy performances from Thierry and Sophie BUNEL GOURDY, 7th in front of Yves and Jean FROMONT as well as the amiable Belgian driver Rudy GOEMINNE. On the other hand, some lost a lot of time today. We found Mido ABOUYOUSSEF stuck in the sand awaiting the support lorry to come to help him and also Louis BURTON, planted in a dust bowl who risked spending the night under a starry Mauritanian desert sky. Others who got back to camp eventually but lost time were Hubert AURIOL, 23rd after gearbox problems, Gilles FLORIN in 26th position and Portuguese Paulo FERREIRA, 28th and nearly 4 hours off the pace when this morning he was in the top 5.

Some of the trucks also suffered, such as the MAN of Elisabete JACINTO who fell victim to a monstrous crash and finished 3:41' from the leader. There were also difficulties for the MAN of Ronny FRANSSEN and Philip HELEWAUT who had to dig themselves out of trouble. On the other hand, everything went well for the KAMAZ of Anton SHIBALOV, 2nd on scratch in front of the TATRA of Tomas TOMECEK, only 1627'' from SCHLESSER. It was also a brilliant stage for Miklos KOVACS in his SCANIA as he finished in 10th position in the car-lorry classification. Overall, Jean Louis SCHLESSER now has a 2:0534'' advantage over the KAMAZ of Anton SHIBALOV and 2:4131'' on Miroslav ZAPLETAL whilst Jrme PELICHET is in 4th position a little more than 3 hours behind. In the lorry category, the KAMAZ is still in the lead in front of the TATRA of Tomas TOMECEK and the MAN of Elisabete JACINTO. ON THE SEVENTH DAY, THE SONANGOL-SCHLESSER BUGGY PULLED AWAY

It was the second stage in Mauritania but the first real challenge. The terrifying yet sublime track awaited the boss on this 440 km Special that started with a 30 km wall of dunes. It gave the opportunity to drive fast but also created the possibility to make mistakes. The stage finished climbing a pass that reminded the participants of the insurmountable ascent to Tumu on the Paris-Dakar... It was a rough day for everyone, many competitors found out what it's like to finish a Special in the dark and at the front, the scuffle was ferocious.

For the Sonangol buggy, the day started badly when the security GPS wasn't set up properly and they had to return to the start straight away losing ten minutes... They got over the wall of dunes, not easily but without crashing, then got back to all of the competitors who had left in front of them, including the bikes. Then Jean Louis Schlesser led the way, as he is used to doing practically every day.

A hundred kilometers from the finish, whilst attacking a narrow pass cluttered with obstacles, it was necessary to jump over the dunes, the only solution for a two wheel drive vehicle. It was behind a dune that a problem arrived...

Jean Louis Schlesser explained... "We jumped a dune and behind... a huge bunch of camel grass, which is as hard as concrete. We got stuck in it, damaging the bonnet and it came off the buggy. We managed to get it back in place, we set off again, but of course as soon as I got up speed it broke again and flew off. We had to stop three times altogether; we shouldn't leave rubbish in the desert! Also it's frankly dangerous if a bike crashes into debris. On the third stop, the Kamaz got back to us and we were driving really fast on parallel tracks. Even though Shibalov told me that he struggled in the dunes, he didn't stop once. We limited the damage and we know that we still have a two hour advance over the second place overall, the Kamaz. But it's the terrain that will decide the future and once again, it'll be necessary to make zero mistakes in navigation. When driving you have to go everywhere, whether it's soft sand or crossing dunes".

Jean Louis Schlesser will therefore leave first again  today, since he won the Special on Saturday. Schlesser and his teammate are now leading the car/lorry category by more than two hours from the second place Kamaz lorry.

Two hours is huge, providing that there are no problems...

Sunday's stage is a loop around Akjoujt and 320 km of Special; it's simple, no stopping allowed!


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