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Stage 5 - Wednesday 7 January 2009 | Neuquen > San Rafael

  • Connection 173 km
  • Special 506 km
  • Connection  84 km

Interviews

Jonah Street (USA - KTM) - 026

Copyright A.S.O. / Amaury Sport Organisation

"Obviously, I worked a lot to get this; I had been dreaming of a stage victory for so long. It’s really special. I did some pretty good navigating. I was not the fastest because my bike is so much slower than the ones of the manufacturers’ riders. But I found the right path and this is what the Dakar is all about. I am not thinking about the general standings. I just want to go on driving at my own pace and taking care of my bike as good as I can to get to the finish of the raid."

Marc Coma (Esp - KTM) - 002

"There were quite a lot of sand dunes and rocks today and a lot of kilometers too. I fell at km 81 and then I drove slow the rest of the day. What mattered for me was to get to the stage finish with no other trouble and I made it."

Cyril Despres (Fra - KTM) - 001

"It wasn’t my best day ever. I ran flat at km 380. I met a group of very nice Argentinians and instead of loosing 20-22 minutes, I must have lost only 17 or so. They helped me out by passing the tools. It was a rough day again for me but I am back with the riders in the lead which I am pretty surprised about. I am relieved but I have left some of my strength in the sand dunes."

Carlos Sainz (Esp - VW) - 301

Copyright A.S.O. / Amaury Sport Organisation

"I drove 200km without power steering. Driving in these conditions is pretty hard. And when the dunes started, it was even harder and I ended up rolling over."

Stéphane Peterhansel (Fra - Mitsubishi) - 300

Copyright A.S.O. / Amaury Sport Organisation

"We made a front somersault 15km from the arrival as we wanted to gain speed and climb up a big sand dune. At the bottom we did not see that there was camel grass and it made us roll over. It was a pretty violent hit. I think this is it because we drove the last kilometers without a radiator and the engine overheated. It was agony towards the end.
Unfortunately, I’m afraid the raid is over for us."

Giniel De Villiers (Afs - Volkswagen) - 305

"This was undoubtedly the toughest stage so far. There was quite a bit off-road and it was hard to find the right way. And because of the altitude, we also had to keep an eye on the engine temperature. But we had no overheating problem, which I was pleasantly surprise of. I seems to me that our car is behaving better in altitude than the Mitsus are."

Gerard De Rooy (Ndl - Ginaf) - 505

"We lost a tyre, I hurt my hand with the wheel and my mechanics is ill. So it’s not been the best of days. We did not loose a lot of time to Chagin but we lost a lot of time to Kabirov. That’s life. The road is still long and we perform very well on sand. This special stage looks very much like the ones in Mauritania. The dunes are beautiful and they are just huge."