The Spanish pair in the Team Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart, Nani Roma & Lucas Cruz, completed the 227km in the final special of the Dakar 2009, between Córdoba and Buenos Aires, in fourth position. However, time penalties awarded by the organisers to the teams that did not finish Thursday`s leg, relegated Roma four places in the overall classification. The Spanish driver`s Mitsubishi Racing Lancer was given a ten hour penalty.
The Repsol tandem were the first to go out out on today`s fast special, but opening up the tracks did not help them and at the first control, kilometre 88, he was in third position, ten seconds behind the Frenchman Guerlain Chicherit. At the next control (km 140) he had fallen to fifth place, although he climbed one position at the finish, setting the fourth fastest time of the day.
The South-African Giniel de Villiers won the final leg of the rally and got his first ever victory in the Rally Dakar, he had a lead of 8m 32seconds over the American Mark Miller.
The Team Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart lost three of its four turbo-charged Racing Lancers in the first week of the race. The Japanese driver Hiroshi Masuoka and French co-driver, Pascal Maimon, retired with mechanical problems. The French driver Luc Alphand retired because his co-driver, Gilles Picard, was taken ill and the other French tandem, Peterhansel & Jean-Paul Cottret, were forced to withdraw before reaching Chile because of engine problems.
Therefore Mitsubishi has not been able to get its eighth consecutive victory in the Rally Dakar, but the team has been able to accelerate the development of its new diesel-powered vehicle and finish the rally with a stage victory, Roma & Cruz. A good reward for the hard work done over a gruelling two weeks of competition.
Although there is no racing tomorrow, Sunday, the surviving teams will participate in a closing ceremony in the La Rural, in central Buenos Aires. Over half a million spectators attended the opening event on Friday 2nd January and after seeing the interest shown by both Argentinians and Chileans during the whole of this year`s Rally Dakar, an even larger number of racing fans are expected at the ceremony.
Nani Roma
“I would like to have finished higher, but the important thing was to finish after the problem we had a few days ago. I have arrived in Buenos Aires and that is because the team behind me worked really, really hard. The car was perfect yesterday and today and is getting better all the time. The handling, the suspension, it is perfect. I know how much work goes into making four cars for the Dakar and, when I arrived in Valparaiso, I knew that there was only me running and it was up to me to keep the team going. No-one in the team lost any motivation and they all continued to push. Yesterday, I told myself that I needed to push, push, push to try and win the stage. I took some risks yesterday, but the stage win was for everyone in the team. Today was not easy. I exploded (puncture) a tyre on the back after CP1 and finished the stage much more slowly. It was important to reach Buenos Aires today. That was the goal.”
Lucas Cruz Senra
“A good finish for us – top 10! For me, this event has been very hard. The temperatures have been very high and the weather has been very difficult. The car has great potential and will be superb when we have worked more on the development. I think it was too much to ask to come up with an answer after two weeks on the rally. Today was a straightforward stage. It was very fast. We had one puncture at about km100, but the rest was okay.”
