The third stage of the Morocco rally proved trickier than expected for Marc Coma and Jordi Viladoms, who experienced navigation problems which led them to lose vital minutes in today’s stage, just as the race reaches the half-way point. Second today, Viladoms now lies in the same position in the general scratch, 1 minute and 2 seconds behind the new leader, Frenchman Cyril Despres. Marc Coma, fourth today, is third in the Rally and 5 minutes and 17 seconds off the lead.
Coma and Viladoms were expecting a stage today with a lot of sand and, setting off second and fourth respectively due to yesterday’s classification, they had a great chance to claw time back from Despres, to whom it fell to lead the way. The special was indeed almost completely over sand but their luck failed them from the start when a string of mistakes in interpreting the roadbook cost them several minutes. On top of this, electrical trouble with Marc Coma’s KTM 690 Rally meant he couldn’t keep up the pace and the man from Avià was forced to slow down so he could make it to the end of the stage.
This was a 184 kilometre special through Erg Cheggaga and Lake Iriki, featuring a route which the riders covered once only. In the light of the traffic problems which arose on day one during the second run through the loop scheduled by the organisers last night they agreed with the participants to cancel the second laps on the remaining stages. This was a safety measure to reduce the risks from mixing up cars and bikes on the same run and to focus the competition on navigation, rather than speed and endurance over long distances.
The fourth stage on Wednesday tomorrow will be a special over 219 kilometres which will take place over the dangerous rocky tracks of Morocco once more, which are fast but strewn with rain ditches, pot-holes and stones.
Marc Coma
“We had a stage with a lot of dunes where navigation was pretty tricky. In the beginning I lost my way a bit and we’ve lost quite a bit of time from notes that were hard to understand. I also had some problems with the bike, which started to play up. It looks like an electrical problem, so now we’ll try and see what it was but the point is that it couldn’t go fast. Luckily I managed to make the end of the stage and tomorrow we’ll carry on.”
Jordi Viladoms
“Today’s stage saw a big change in the going because right from the start it was virtually all over sand. We did 50 kilometres off-track through Erg de Cheggaga. After that, through Lake Iriki, there was also off-track stuff. All the time we came across dune zones, sometimes big ones, sometimes others were smaller. The first part was quite good but in the zone at the end you had to watch yourself because the the sand was softer and it was easy to get caught. The real shame is that Marc [Coma] and I got lost several times, as with most of the riders, because the roadbook was quite confusing at several points.”
