Arras-Madrid-Dakar: Stage 12 news update

Wednesday 9 January 2002
Stage 12 - Tidjikja to Tichit

15:59 Meoni by a minute
Bikes: Fabrizio Meoni finally secured his overnight position at the head of the leaderboard. Alfie Cox won the stage, his second in this Dakar after his maiden win on the section between Atar and Atar. Joan Roma was second, 40s behind, and Meoni was third (1m 06s behind).

15:39 'Shino' in a delicate position
Cars: At the 364 kms point, Kenjiro Shinozuka (No. 210) is reported in a delicate situation, having to drive carefully by the side of a cliff. It it near the point where he has regained the stage after losing around 10 minutes.

15:04 Meoni comes again
Bikes - At PC3, 108 kms from the finish, Fabrizio Meoni (No. 1) took advantage of the faster terrain and retook the lead from Joan Roma (No. 9). He now leads the overall classification by 20s.

14:29 Tiainen injured
Bikes - Kari Tiainen (No. 8) has crashed after PC2. The Finn has suffered a broken left forearm and probably a broken collar bone.

14:08 Roma the overall leader
Bikes: At PC2, No. 9 (Roma) has passed ahead, with a 1m 19s advantage over No. 5 (Cox) and 2m 36s ahead of No. 1 (Meoni). Roma started 1m 26s behind Meoni this morning in the overall classification and is now the outright leader of the race by 1m 10s.

13:30 (time at PC1 - 11.52) Masuoka ahead at PC1
Cars - The first four cars have passed PC1, in the order 201, 207 and 210, all separated by 15 seconds. No. 200 (Kleinschmidt) passed four minutes later. She has punctured.

-aso-