Transsyberia Rally: Ammin Schwarz leg eleven summary

Transsyberia Rally, Leg 11: Stage won - now in second overall

Yes! We knew it had to happen at some stage. We set the top time in today's 208 kilometre special stage. At the same time, Pedro Figueiredo, who lay ahead of us in the overall classification yesterday, had problems with the rear shock absorbers (like we did yesterday) and that cost him loads of time. So now Andi and I rank second overall.

Flat out over the first 90 ks, then we eased off to get to the finish safely.

For the first 90 kilometres we drove full tilt to escape the dust of our opponents. Only then did we ease off the pace. Still, around 20 kilometres from the finish we hit a stone and slightly damaged our oil sump.

Lars Kern and Daniel van Kan from Team Germany 3 finally caught up to us and followed us home. They reached the finish four minutes behind us. A German double victory on Leg 11!

Christian Lavieille put in yet another immaculate drive and secured third today, 17 minutes behind us. We now rank a second behind Christian and his co-driver Francois Borsotto with a gap of almost two hours - including the two time penalties totalling 90 minutes.

A good day for us. That's how our competitors saw us most of the time.

The twelfth leg of the Transsyberia Rally runs over 529 kilometres from Altai to Bayankhongor. The 407 kilometre special stage is the longest of our journey. The Transsyberia Rally started on 11th July on Moscow's Red Square and finishes on 25th July in the Mongo lian capital of Ulaanbaatar after a total of over 7,000 kilometres.

Overall classification Transsyberia Rally 2008 after the 11th of 14 legs

01. Lavieille/Borsotto   Team France       Porsche     16:27.33 hrs

02. Schwarz/Schulz       Team Germany 1    Porsche     1:59.47 hrs behind

03. Gameiro/Figueiredo   Team Portugal     Porsche     2:35.17

04. Soler/Peinado        Team Spain        Porsche     2:37.57

05. Levyatov/Talantsev   Team Russia 1     Porsche     3:33.35

06. Kern/van Kan         Team Germany 3    Porsche     3:34.44

07. Celma/Unger          Team Germany 2    Porsche     6:37.46

08. Baier/Steinbring     Teambuctou        Toyota      7:39.02

09. Kern/Binder          Team Pro          Porsche     8:13.07

10. Pfeil-Schneider/Steuer    Colombian Arrow   Porsche     9:08.42

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-credit: armin schwarz