January 10(Local date), the 4th race day(1day canceled) in Chile. Today’s SS was 557km and the longest run in this Dakar Rally. The first half was the battle with feshifeshi ground and the sand dunes waited in the second half. Because Jun couldn’t cut the time gap as he hoped yesterday, he planned to get a huge lead on the followers today.
In the first half , Jun wasn’t supposed to catch up to the antecessor but his pace was so good that he got close enough to the leading vehicle to wage a good battle. He paid attention to the water temperature of his car and got through the feshifeshi ground. However, he got into a electric system trouble at the end of the part. Usually, the car locks the differential when running in the difficult sand area, but since the system didn’t work, he was buried in the sand. Jun escaped from the sand with a help from the audience. He ran normaly and there was no problem after that but lost 10 minutes there.
The second half was fine without any troubles. Jun climbed and came down the sand dunes at a stroke in the rest of 30km from the goal. That was the exploit of the navigator Alain Guehennec who guided Jun more accurately than usual. He chose a different route from the others and it turned out to be right. Alain was a big help and Jun and succeeded to have a big lead of 1hour and 43minutes from the followers at the end of the stage.
The bench strength of this Dakar Rally is thick and it is so hard to get a higher lank. We hope Jun is going to ascend more and more.
Dakar Rally 2012 Stage 9 Result:
Liaison: 9km SS:557km
T2 Autos Result: 1st
Overall standings: 22th
Pos. N° Name Mark Time variation Penalty
1 339 MITSUHASHI (JPN) GUEHENNEC (FRA) TOYOTA 09:17:16 – –
2 340 FOJ (ESP) CERVANTES () TOYOTA 11:00:19 01:43:03 –
3 346 ALHERAIZ (UAE) ALKENDI (UAE) TOYOTA 12:47:21 03:30:05 –
4 341 WAUTERS (BEL) FERYN (BEL) TOYOTA 17:18:43 08:01:27 –
5 398 BASSO (FRA) MENARD (FRA) TOYOTA 20:18:03 11:00:47 ?
http://www.dakar.com/dakar/2012/us/stage-9/rankings/overall-cars.html#ancre
