KTM stage ten report

Stage victory for KTM's Viladoms; Coma maintains overall lead Line victory in Stage 10 of the 2009 Dakar went to KTM factory rider Jordi Viladoms with factory teammate Alain Duclos coming home second. Marc Coma made it a perfect KTM day to maintain his commanding overall lead as the rally re-enters Argentina.

While Marc Coma maintains his overall lead on the Frenchman Fretigne (second at 1h24'50) and Cyril Despres (third at 1h31'11), the big change at the top of the leader board is that Despres now trails Fretigne by just over six minutes. The day was certainly eventful for the KTM riders.

Jordi Viladoms (Repsol KTM) 1st and 4th overall (at 1h56'40)
A very strange, amazing day! I arrived at the first refuelling in more or less the position I expected. So I was very surprised, not to say a little concerned, to see that at the second refuelling Marc (Coma) wasn't there. Much to my relief, he arrived two minutes later, with Cyril (Despres) and Chaleco (Lopez). On leaving the refuelling CP Alain (Duclos) and I waited for our respective riders and then all four of us rode through the camel grass together -- a lot of fun. Then, not far from the end, we couldn't find the waypoint. We headed off up this huge dune, more like a mountain, to get to it and in the process all split up. I started to get worried again and then two dunes later I saw an orange bike in the distance and fortunately it was Marc -- a big relief.

Alain Duclos (Kaestle KTM) 2nd (at 1'06) overall (at 12H44'17")
A fantastic stage! Until the second refuelling I rode in 'economy mode' to protect the tyre and then hooked up with Cyril, Marc, Jordi and Chaleco. Towards the finish Cyril set up off up this dune that was more like a mountain and we chased after him. It all became a bit chaotic. Jordi and I tried to stay with our riders. I saw a big crowd in the distance and thought it must be the finish line -- if it had been I might have won the special!

Cyril Despres (Red Bull KTM) 6th (at 8'50) 3rd overall (at 1h31'11)
It was such a crazy day it is difficult to explain exactly what happened -- even I am not sure, and I was there! Understandably Marc stayed very close to me all day. The problem was that when I went wrong he still stayed with me. If he'd disappeared from my 'rear view mirror' I would have realised my mistake a lot sooner. When we finally got to the refuelling Marc, Chaleco and I all had a good laugh about it. Then right at the end we went our separate ways and I was amazed to find myself all alone at the finish line. I kept asking people 'are you sure nobody else has been through'.

Marc Coma (Repsol KTM) 7th (at 12'17) 1st overall
We left the bivouac at about 6 this morning, but because of the fog and the fact that the helicopters couldn't fly, we didn't start till 10. Then this evening we didn't get back to 17.30 -- it was a very long day -- and quite a stressful one! Everything was going fine until we got lost after the refuelling CP and lost about 20 minutes Then nearly at the end we struggled to find a waypoint and had to ride through some pretty soft sand. If yesterday resembled Morocco today was a bit like Mauritania.

Cancellation of Stage 11

Regrettably, what promised to be a spectacular Stage 11 that was billed as the most majestic of the entire rally was cancelled on Tuesday evening due to predicted bad weather. Riders will now just go to Fiambala across the border in Argentina in liaison and restart from there the next day.

-ktm