WHAT THEY SAID . . .
Nasser Al-Attiyah #300: “I said yesterday that these stages were going to be very important and so it proved. Experience of this sort of terrain is essential and unfortunately Sebastien had a problem. It was a tricky stage but we pushed hard and had no real problems: Mathieu did a great job but the next two days of the rally are going to be very important as well. It’s far from over.”
Sebastien Loeb #314: “I ended up in a river that turned to be quite deep and that at first I didn’t see. We dropped into the river and the car was instantly thrown up and we rolled. We broke a lot of things on the car. We had to change two wheels to try and get it going again. We also changed the transmission so for sure we lost a lot of time. The plan was always to come here to get experience. Okay, the first week went better than we had planned and we held the lead. Now things are not so nice. For this to happen just 10km from the end of the stage is very frustrating, but that’s life. We have to continue now.”
Stéphane Peterhansel #302: “About 20 kilometres from the end of the stage there was a large river, with the speed at around 120kph. There was a big hole there and Seb crashed into the hole and rolled. I don’t know how many rolls, but he was okay. I’m back in the lead now but there’s no way I can control the advantage.”
Giniel de Villiers #302: “Unfortunately I made a stupid mistake and I’m bit annoyed with myself, but okay, these things happen. I took a wrong track about 30 kilometres before the end of the stage, but that wasn’t the biggest problem. I reversed back and went straight into some camel grass: it took ages for us to get out. We’re still definitely lacking something in terms of power at altitude: we couldn’t live with the pace of Nasser today.”
Toby Price #3: “The hardest bits of the stage were the little sand dunes with small grass patches in them. I felt comfortable enough: we’re doing the best we can and we’ll see how tomorrow goes. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a duel all the way to the end with Paulo and it’s not just going to come down to minutes: it’s going to come down to seconds. He is riding really strongly and we’re trying our best. It would be nice for me to win my second Dakar but we still have another six days or so to go, so anything can happen.”
Ayrat Mardeev #500: “It is obvious that our team comes to the Dakar with the hope of getting another winning result. There is not one specific driver who has the instruction to win, we all do the best job we can and see what results come. I’m a racing driver so naturally I like to finish first when possible.”
Joan ‘Bang Bang’ Barreda #6 (retired): “It’s finished for me, which is tough when you work towards this race all year. But I need to keep working and keep strong. We’ll analyse what happened and go from there. I heard a different sound from my bike quite suddenly after 200 kilometres on stage six, then 10 kilometres later it stopped and wouldn’t go again. I also hurt my hand a bit trying to get my bike going when a rock hit me from a passing car, but nothing serious: it just hurts a bit.”
Matthias Walkner #14 (retired): “Finally I’ve had an operation, after a long nine hours. What happened was really sh*t, but that’s what can happen when you get the dust against the sun and you don’t see much! Thanks so much to everyone who has sent me good wishes.”