Marc Coma leads the motorbike race on his KTM and Luc Alphand is the leader of the car class in his Mitsubishi
Leg 2: Neuquén San Rafael
Liaison: 63.12 km – Special: 653.37 km – Liaison: 72.83 km – Total: 799.40 km
The second leg of the Patagonia-Atacama Raid was staged yesterday (Thursday), taking participants from Neuquén to San Rafael in Argentina, covering a total of 799.4 kilometres (653 timed), and being the largest leg of the first round of the Raid World Championship. The first bike started from the bivouac at 6.00 a.m. to take the start of the special 63 kilometres later. Yesterdays leg was the largest leg of the raid, leading through arid areas with little vegetation.
In the motorbike class, Marc Coma’s leg victory achieved yesterday strengthens his lead in the overall standings, with an advantage of 2552 minutes over the second classified, Frenchman David Casteu, and 3131 minutes over the third, team mate Jordi Viladoms.
In the car class, victory for Luc Alphand and leadership in the overall standings, ahead of team mate Nani Roma, who is second, 220 behind the French driver. Romas little fright of yesterday a light overturn didnt hinder him from finishing second and staying very close to his team mate and overall leader, Luc Alphand, recently crowned winner of the 2006 Lisbon-Dakar Rally.
Today, drivers and riders will face a much more accessible leg, however having to overcome dunes in the first 40 km, an area where they will find the biggest difficulties of the day. The special stage will start on a broken, stony road where they will have to be very careful with navigation. Then it will become faster until they reach the dune area. Finally they will find some vegetation, similar to the well-known camel grass.
Marc Coma: Its been a long leg, with more than 700 kms and a special stage where we have found all kinds of terrain. Ive been riding all by myself all day and I didnt have any problem, everything went well. We made a small navigation mistake, but it was nothing serious. Things are going well and my rivals have lost more than 25 minutes today. Im very happy for my team mate Jordi Viladoms, who made a great leg today. I feel physically much better than expected after the Dakar, Im still in shape and Im not suffering too much.
Jordi Viladoms: Its been a very hard stage because it’s been too long, with a technical route and a lot of navigation. Its been good; we followed the road book literally, although we made a small mistake. However, Im happy, the question is that weve covered a lot of kilometres and gained experience.
Nani Roma: I’m OK, we were lucky to be able to continue after yesterdays overturn. It was really a big fright, it went really fast, but I finally was even able to finish second. The stage was long and complicated. Im one minute behind Luc in the overall standings and Ill try to recover the distance, which is not much. But above all Ill try to avoid any risk, because the most important is that both cars get to the finish and continue gaining experience.
Leg results
Motorbikes:
1º Marc Coma, 6:58’21”
2º Jordi Viladoms, + 23’43”
3º David Casteu, + 25’23”
4º Orly Terranova, + 52’25”
5º Francisco López, + 1:02’36”
Cars
1º Luc Alphand-Gilles Picard, 6:51’21”
2º Joan Roma-Henri Magne, + 2’20”
3º Guilherme Spinelli-Marcelo Vivolo + 49’54”
4º Mauricio Neves-Clecio Maestrelli + 1:22’32”
5º Ivar Tollefsen-Quin Evans + 2:02’35”
Overall standings
Motorbikes:
1º Marc Coma, 9:24’01”
2º David Casteu, + 25’52”
3º Jordi Viladoms, + 31’31”
4º Francisco López, + 1:17’12”
5º Orly Terranova, + 1:20’59”
Cars
1º Luc Alphand-Gilles Picard, 9:28’46”
2º Joan Roma-Henri Magne, + 1’24”
3º Guilherme Spinelli-Marcelo Vivolo + 50’02”
4º Mauricio Neves-Clecio Maestrelli + 1:18’49”
5º Ivar Tollefsen-Quin Evans + 2:19’45”
