STAGE N°2: JORF EL HAMAM / TAGOUNITE: 403km LIAISON: JORF EL HAMAM / MERZOUGA: 75km LEG: MERZOUGA / OULED DRISS: 313km LIAISON: OULED DRISS / TAGOUNITE: 15km
One of our saying’s here in the AFRICA ECO RACE is : The Real Race ! After this first real stage of 403km, in between Jorf El Hamam and Tagounite, the drivers who are still sceptic about the race difficulty should have been convinced by lots of complicated navigation, complex driving situations and difficulties on the track. At the end of the stage we can already see some quite significant gaps been created in the rankings of the different categories. All these elements mean that thanks to today’s stage all the competitors now know what to expect for the coming days. On that note, as he got out of the cockpit of his OPTIMUS at the end of the leg, the very experienced Jean Pierre STRUGO shared with us his first impressions: “It was really not that simple today !”
And that makes one for Pal Anders ULLEVALSETER Last year, Pal Anders ULLEVALSETER announced that he was retirement from the sport. But the call of the desert and an opportunity, thanks to a sponsor who will send a generous amount of money to the Fabrizio MEONI Foundation in Dakar, brought him back and convinced him to get back onto his KTM. Indeed, Pal will receive a bonus for every stage win he gets during this year’s race, and Pal has decided to give all this money to this NGO. This has made the Norwegian rider very motivated and he had to start the rally with a stage win. He has taken the lead for the bike category with just over 24 minutes on the Italian Stefano CHIUSSI, followed by the Brit Andrew NEWLAND who is 30” behind the Italian. The Russian rider Dmitry AGOSHKOV finishes 4th at 27’39’’, but he is in front of the French rider Julien SANCHEZ, who was the rookie of AFRICA ECO RACE 2015, who this year again has stayed with YAMAHA.
This year again we will keep an eye out for the Russian rider Anastasiya NIFONTOVA, who is now current World Champion of the sport, who finished in 7th place. This first day has been difficult for two bikers, first the German Gabriel PAFF LUTZ and secondly the Italian Stefano PELLONI, both were victims of crashes and both have a shoulder injury, which should make these two abandon the relay on medical reason.
Mathieu SERRADORI has found his grove It did not take long for the French driver Mathieu SERRADORI to position his Buggy in front of all the rest of the field. With under 1’000km on the clock, this proto from MSR enabled his driver to set the best time of the leg.
An excellent performance which makes him stand out as one of the favorites, as one of the favorites, as we can already see, by been only 1’17’’ behind the Kazakh HUMMER of Yuriy SAZONOV, but because of his win in the first stage he remains the leader of the ranking in the car category. The Russian Anton GRIGOROV had also a very good day behind the wheel of his OSCAR, by taking the third step on the podium for the day. Thanks to his good performance yesterday, he is also third in the car’s scratch ranking behind SERRADORI but in front of Ricardo LEAL DOS SANTOS, also in good shape in the start of this rally as he finishes in 4th position.
Some other noticeable performances are for the 5th place of Kanat SHAGIROV in his TOYOTA, who finished just in front of Pascal THOMASSE who lost 30 minutes because of fuel pomp problem which he had to fix on his OPTIMUS. The French Rally Champion is in front of two of his teammates, from the Team MD Rallye Sport, Jérémie CHOIZEAU with as co-driver Jean BRUCY and Jean Noël JULIEN who is learning very quickly how to drive a 2 wheel drive OPTIMUS . After having started in 20th, Jean Antoine SABATIER signed a respectable position in the top 10 cars of the day. A quick word concerning the problems of the day is about Balazs SZALAY losing a wheel, Dominique HOUSIEAUX ripping off his front axle and four punctures for Joseph ROSSO who lost big in the T2 category, which today was won by Marat ABYKAYEV.
Anton SHIBALOV wins in the trucks Once again a truck almost won the scratch ranking as Anton SHIBALOV finished 2nd 1’17 behind Mathieu SERRADORI. It is almost sure that very soon a KAMAZ will get a scratch stage win before the end of this year’s Monaco-Dakar.
Behind the double AFRICA ECO RACE champion we have the second Russian truck of Sergey KUPRIANOV with a gap of almost 15 minutes. Behind the wheel of his Tatra, the Tcheck Tomas TOMECEK took 3rd position 37 minutes behind the lead, but in front of Elisabeth JACINTO who managed to lose a big part of her bodywork on the front left of her MAN truck by hitting some camel grass a bit too hard.
