photo courtesy of Dakar.com
For the third time in six years, Marc Coma has bested Cyril Despres to take the top podium finish in the 2011 Personal Dakar Rally by 15 minutes and 4 seconds. The two riders have now each won three titles over that six-year stretch. Despres finished second, with the third place finisher, Helder Rodrigues, well over an hour and a half behind the pair.
The quad category was won by Alejandro Patronelli, brother of one of the pre-race favorites, Marco Patronelli, aboard a Yamaha machine. Marco took a bad spill between stages and later bowed out due to electrical problems with his equipment.
Among the car entries, Volkswagen Touaregs took all three podium positions, with Nasser Al-Attiyah and Timothy Gottschalk winning, Giniel De Villiers and Dirk Von Zitzewitz taking second, and Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz finishing third. Stephane Peterhansel in his BMW X3 could only manage a fourth place finish.
Kamaz continued domination of the truck category with the Vladimir Chagin-led team winning for the seventh time, followed by Firdaus Kabirov’s team and a solid third place finish by another 4326 Kamaz truck piloted by Eduard Nikolaev. To put the final stamp on the domination, fourth place was won by another 4326 Kamaz, driven by a team led by Ilgizar Mardeeev.
Full results and hundred of photos are featured on the Dakar website.