Aurélie SACCHELLI, Media365, published on Sunday, January 01, 2023 at 4:59 p.m.
Second and tenth respectively on the first stage of the Dakar, Sébastien Loeb and Stéphane Peterhansel were very careful with punctures so as not to spoil their rally from the start.
Don’t lose the Dakar from the first stage. That was the challenge for all riders as they set out on New Year’s Day for this 367km stage around Sea Camp. This is particularly the case for Sébastien Loeb (Bahrain Raid Xtreme) and Stéphane Peterhansel (Audi), who were very careful about punctures on Saudi Arabia’s rocky roads. The nine-time world rally champion, who finished second 23 seconds behind winner Carlos Sainz, was not taking any risks this Sunday, as he explained at the finish: “All in all it was a great special, with big stones at the start all the same, so we were careful not to get a flat tire. So I was riding pretty cool at the time, then we picked up the pace as we went. We must have lost a minute in navigation, but not much, so it was a good stage for us. Tomorrow we will be second on the road, it is not necessarily a very good position to attack, but we will do our best”.
Peterhansel: “We drove safely”
Stéphane Peterhansel, for his part, finished tenth at 8’54, but believes it could have been worse, like last year: “To stay positive, we’ll say it’s better than last year, since from the first stage we lost all chances.of finishing well.We had two punctures, the first one through my fault, the second through a motorcyclist’s dust.When you’ve used your two spare wheels, you have no room for error. If you die again, you have to wait for your assistance car or end up on three wheels. From there we drove safely… We lost almost ten minutes because of that. In the overall standings, Loeb is second, 10 seconds behind Carlos Sainz, and Peterhansel is eighth, 8’51 behind. But the road is still very long before the arrival. Monday there are 430 kilometers of specials on the menu.
