Dakar
Team SPEED Hummer stage 1 report
Team SPEED Hummer press release
Edited: Jan 3, 2012, 2:14 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Santa Rosa (January 1st, 2012) - On the first day of the New Year, the competitors of the 2012 Dakar Rally prepared for an early start, which took them from the beach city of Mal Del Plata to Santa Rosa de La Pampa. The special stage section was only 57km, making it the shortest racing section of the rally.
#303 Hummer: Robby Gordon and Johnny Campbell
Photo by: A.S.O.
Nasser Al-Attiyah would start out with an advantage being the first car on the road, and teammate Robby Gordon would follow off the line in fourth. When the auto class got to the special stage, they would find areas to pass the competition along the coast line and drive into small dunes that represented their first hurdle. In this short section, the fastest time would establish each competitors position in the rankings.
By checkpoint 1 of the Special Stage, Al-Attiyah and Gordon were running first and second, only 9 seconds between them with Peterhansel 51 secs behind. The HUMMERs were off to a great start, proving to be a real contender. Unfortunately only 2km from the finish, Al-Attiyah's HUMMER lost power. Seeing his teammate on the side of the road, Gordon had no choice but to help the 2011 Dakar Champion cross the finish. With the SPEED Energy/Toyo Tires HUMMER towing the Qatar/Toyo Tires HUMMER, Gordon ended up losing valuable seconds, resulting in him being the third car to finish. He ended up fifth based on corrected time. Al-Attiyah's finish will be determined at a later time due to the fact he had assistance. Al-Attiyah and his navigator Lucas Cruz would evaluate the situation with their vehicle before heading towards Santa Rosa de la Pampa. Not really knowing what exactly happened, they were able to communicate with Gordon to help get his HUMMER up and running again.
Back at the bivouac, Team SPEED crew members will diagnose the situation with #300 and work together to get Al-Attiyah prepared for tomorrow's Special Stage 2 which will begin approximately at 12:39am ARG local time.
"I was having a difficult time getting used to reading the road book along with telling Robby the danger points. Everything was a danger out there. He was going so fast it was just hard to keep up and we would have won the stage without helping Nasser. So we'll see what happened there," navigator Johnny Campbell commented after his first competition run in Gordon's HUMMER.
"Our car had a good run. We got beat by 30 seconds or more so I think we easily could have won the stage or Nasser could have won. Not sure how long he was sitting there, but like I said it was a good run. It looks like he's got a transmission leak so we'll have to put a transmission cover on the side of it to prevent anymore fluid getting on the back of the car," Gordon said after earning a 5th place finish for the day.
Stage 2 will have a Special Stage of 290km and 487km of Liaison starting in Santa Rosa de la Pampa and ending in San Rafael where Gordon will start in 5th and Nasser's position in 30th, 9 minutes and 45 seconds back of the leader.
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article MWR KTM team stage 1 report
Next article Series Stage 1 report
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Nasser Al-Attiyah
Dakar 2026, Stage 2: Toyota scores 1-2-3-4-5 but Nasser Al-Attiyah takes overall lead
Dakar
Dakar
Dakar 2026, Stage 2: Toyota scores 1-2-3-4-5 but Nasser Al-Attiyah takes overall lead
Martins Sesks rejoins M-Sport for WRC Saudi Arabia finale
WRC
WRC
Rally Saudi Arabia
Martins Sesks rejoins M-Sport for WRC Saudi Arabia finale
Al-Attiyah in a "lot of stress" after navigator mistake dents Dakar hopes
Dakar
Dakar
Dakar
Al-Attiyah in a "lot of stress" after navigator mistake dents Dakar hopes
Latest news
McLaren retains Leonardo Fornaroli in F1 as Italian adds WEC programme for 2027
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1 8 min
McLaren retains Leonardo Fornaroli in F1 as Italian adds WEC programme for 2027
GT2 European: Maserati ends on a high note at Portimao, with titles for Hartling/Thilenius and Gialdini/Njor
Sponsored
Sponsored
Portimão
1 h
GT2 European: Maserati ends on a high note at Portimao, with titles for Hartling/Thilenius and Gialdini/Njor
Inside the competition building F1’s future engineering talent
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
United States GP
2 h
Inside the competition building F1’s future engineering talent
Toyota clinches 2026 NASCAR Cup manufacturer championship early after dominant season
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Phoenix II
9 h
Toyota clinches 2026 NASCAR Cup manufacturer championship early after dominant season
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe