The third stage of the Rally of Tunisia gave the riders their first real taste of how long this rally is going to be. The special was a long 356km, where Marc Coma started first and opened up the tracks from start to finish. Nobody was able to catch him, although at the end of the day he finished second 2 minutes 53 seconds behind Cyril Despres, the winner of today`s stage. After a day`s work of almost four hours on the bike, Jordi Viladoms was fifth, he lost 16 minutes 19 seconds in the overall classification.
After leaving the bivouac in Wadi Mellah the special turned eastwards, to later once again go south towards the frontier with Libya. It was another special where the riders` navigational skills were more than necessary because of the large number of tracks that the riders came across. However, the second half of the special was on more open terain as the motorbikes entered the desert, and at the end speed gained in importance as the finishing line got nearer.
Tomorrow, Saturday, the rally enters Libya after a stage of 582km. A short liaison of 2km leads the riders to special against the clock that measures 288km, until Dehibat, and then another liaison of 292km to the town of Derj, where the next bivouac is, in Libyan territory.
Marc Coma,
“This was the first long stage, with the first section needing a lot of navigation. After that we were in a zone of desert tracks, which got faster and faster, on open terrain. Anyway, we still have not had any dunes to tackle, no off track either. I was the first over the finishing line, even though I had to open up the tracks and it was very long. But Cyril [Despres], who started out behind me, made up some ground. Anyway I am pleased because it is not easy to open the tracks up all the time, and I did a good special.”
Jordi Viladoms,
“This was the first really long stage, and up to the refuelling point it went quite well. There was a lot of navigation, more than I expected but I was not able to take advantage of starting further down the field. We thought there was going to be more off track and we found a special that was on tracks the whole time. The first part was slower and I was able to ovetake quite a few riders, but then it got faster and I slackened my pace a little because we were still not sure how the rear tyre was going to respond. It seems that Marc`s [Coma] held out fine right to the end, although we preferred not to lower our guard and to protect the the tyre as much as possible.”
