by Mike K-H

Fast but comparatively inexperienced Giniel de Villiers likes to use Ari Vatanen as a mentor when he gets a chance. Yesterday (15 Jan) Ari seemed to be forcing the pace even more than usual.

"In the first couple of kilometres, we took a wrong turn and we lost 2 minutes straight away. We were cruising for the first 100km until Ari (Vatanen) caught up with us. We then really attacked a lot. The tracks were really very fast. We had no problems and just had to be careful because it was quite rough on some sections. I now know why I was going so quickly," said Giniel that evening.

Now let Ari pick up the story:

“We started off strongly today. We caught Luc Alphand shortly after the start, about 50 km, and just afterwards, we took off while going over a very fast dune. The landing was extremely violent, which totally bent my accelerator pedal, and more importantly gave me a terrible pain in the back and chest. Afterwards, I was rather worried that the bump could have had some consequences. Driving with a pedal in that condition was quite difficult, as it was not moving freely and kept jamming in the accelerating position. Moreover, my back was really hurting, a pain that took my breath away. A beautiful stage, with alternating rolling and bumpy sections, with dunes and plateaux. Beautiful black plateaux between two strings of dunes. At the end of the stage, we strayed slightly from the path, but soon got back on route. Luc was very fast in a straight line, faster than us. We stayed with him, and caught up with Giniel and Sousa. At one point the four of us were running together. It was great fun and very spectacular. When I passed Giniel, I could feel that he was taking my rhythm, I was almost pushing him to go faster. I think I was a good teacher today!"