Giniel happy as team put in solid work

While he admitted he did not have it all his own way, South African driver Giniel de Villiers was satisfied with another solid performance on the seventh stage of the Dakar Rally.

Delivering his best result of the race thus far, De Villiers grabbed second place on Saturday’s marathon leg in Bolivia.

Working hard after the event’s only rest day, he climbed to fourth spot overall, covering the 425km timed section 12 minutes off the pace of Spaniard Carlos Sainz.

“It was a much tougher stage than we expected, but we had a clean run and we’re happy to have made it safely,” De Villiers said.

With former leader Stephane Peterhansel losing nearly two hours after a crash, which compounded Peugeot’s concerns following Sebastien Loeb’s withdrawal from the race earlier in the week, Qatari driver Nasser al-Attiyah climbed to second place behind Sainz in the general classification as the local Toyota Gazoo Racing SA team fought hard.

“We’re still racing at well over 4 000m altitude, so keeping up with the Peugeots remains a challenge,” said Toyota Gazoo team principal Glyn Hall.

“But we saw today that the Dakar still has a lot of bite in it, and we’ll just do our best to push whenever we can.”

Meanwhile, South African navigator Rob Howie and Argentine driver Lucio Alvarez (Overdrive Toyota) rose to 10th place as they continued their impressive comeback after a wobbly start.

Three SA bike riders were also still in the race, with David Thomas settling in 45th position on his Husqvarna.

His compatriots, Donovan van der Langenberg and Willem du Toit, were lying 58th and 60th respectively on their KTM bikes, with Frenchman Adrien van Beveren (Yamaha) setting the twowheel pace up front ahead of yesterday’s eighth stage.