Friday 29 October 2010
Rally de Maroc: Despres' happy return
Posted on 13:14 by google
The Morocco Rally finished with a Red Bull 1-2-3 with France’s Cyril Despres finishing ahead of Portugal’s Helder Rodrigues and Marc Coma of Spain third. Despres had returned from six months away from the sport following the birth of his daughter to win the Morocco Rally. While his team-mate Marc Coma completed a remarkable comeback of his own.
Stage One
"A beautiful warm-up," says Despres as he takes the lead on his new KTM 450 with Coma, just two weeks after winning the Pharaohs Rally, finishing second on an identical machine with Holland’s Franz Verhoeven third. “You couldn’t hope for a much better start,” adds Despres.
Stage Two
Day two saw another 1-2 for KTM but with Coma leading home Despres. But organisers had introduced some special navigational challenges where riders had to ride within 400m of certain points. The judges decided to issue Coma with a 30-minute penalty after he missed a checkpoint to hand Depres a convincing lead and put the Spaniard down to fourth overall. Helder Rodrigues, meanwhile, was third to move second overall and Fretigne retired with a broken collarbone.
Stage Three
Coma hit back hard, claiming a second stage victory. Finishing a tactical sixth, Cyril Despres (Red Bull KTM) maintained the overall lead, 13’00 ahead of Rodrigues. “Not a day for riding flat out. It rained all night long and was still raining this morning when I took the start, making visibility very poor. Then 100 metres into the special my compass heading repeater packed up, complicating navigation even further. Up until the halfway point Rodrigues and I took it in turns to open the piste, but then we started to get into some huge puddles, and aware that Marc (Coma) had received a half hour penalty the night before for missing a waypoint, I decided that it was time to back off a little and manage my overall lead.”
Stage Four
Coma on top again to close the gap on Rodrigues and Despres, who made a navigational error of his own at the beginning of the second loop to cost himself valuable time. The penalty pushed the reigning Dakar champion back to sixth on the day and reduced his lead over Rodrigues to 4m 20s, leaving it delicately poised for the penultimate day.
Stage Five
A better day for Despres, who increases his lead of Rodrigues to almost 10 minutes and nearly 15 ahead of Coma. He’s back in the seat for the last day. "I wasn't too happy with myself for letting my guard drop yesterday and so started this morning determined to make amends. I left the line in sixth place, but behind five riders who were attacking hard. At about 40km, I came across Olivier Pain who was having trouble with his bike, so that was one rider whose dust I didn't have to worry about.
“Then at the refuelling point I saw that I had taken back about 1 minute 30 seconds and that allowed me to back off a little. By the end of the special I had managed to pull back a small but significant amount of time on Rodrigues and Coma.”
Stage Six
No mistake for Despres as he wraps up the final honours, with the new KTM 450, the machine that he’ll take to the Dakar, coming through the event without suffering a single mechanical issue. Coma remained philosophical over taking third place, but optimistic about his chances in the Dakar next January.
"After the penalty on Tuesday’s stage, I knew this rally was lost. But I’ve given my all over these few days. We should be happy with the feelings we have had on the new KTM 450. It’s an easy and manageable bike, which makes me feel optimistic about the forthcoming Dakar.”
“I am really happy to be part of such a prestigious podium and this proves we are heading in a good way for Dakar,” Rodrigues said. “I have to take my hat off to the organisers of this Rally as it was superb and full of variety.”
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