Dakar

Dakar: Volkswagen stage five report

Fourth stage win and one-two-three for Volkswagen Fourth stage victory and top-three positions overall -- things are still running well for Volkswagen after five of the Rally Dakar's fifteen competitive stages. Carlos Sainz/Michel PÃ©rin won the ...

Published: Jan 16, 2007, 7:31 AM

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Fourth stage win and one-two-three for Volkswagen

Fourth stage victory and top-three positions overall -- things are still running well for Volkswagen after five of the Rally Dakar's fifteen competitive stages.

Carlos Sainz/Michel Périn won the fifth stage from Ouarzazate to Tan Tan in Morocco by 30 seconds from Mitsubishi driver Stéphane Peterhansel, and in doing so claimed their second stage victory and fourth of the rally for Volkswagen. The Spanish-French duo increased its overall lead by more than one-and-a-half minutes on the 768 kilometre long stage. Two Volkswagen team mates fill second and third places overall behind the double Rally World Champion: Giniel de Villiers/Dirk von Zitzewitz, third on today's stage, remain second overall. The Portuguese-German squad of Carlos Sousa/Andreas Schulz, in the Lagos-Team Race Touareg, defended third overall. Volkswagen leads the 29th running of the desert classic since the opening stage.

Mark Miller/Ralph Pitchford and Ari Vatanen/Fabrizia Pons finished the fifth stage in eighth and sixteenth respectively in two other blue Race Touareg prototypes sporting the Red-Bull design. The stony and dusty tracks winding through Moroccan Atlas Mountain Range passes pushed both man and machine to their limits: Both Ari Vatanen and Mark Miller suffered three punctures each.

Coming up...

Thursday, 11 January: Stage 6, Tan Tan (MA) -- Zouerat (MR): 394 km stage/817 km total. The Rally Armada leaves Morocco and crosses the border to Mauritania during the Dakar Rally's longest stage. After completing a 414 kilometre liaison stage, a 394 kilometre long stage is on the agenda, the second half of which runs through sand dunes.

-credit: vw

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