It was not a stage we were trying to win. First and foremost, we wanted to avoid falling into traps, especially after getting stuck in the sand yesterday. It was the toughest stage of the entire Dakar with regard to the dunes. We made a tactical choice to start with lower-than-normal tyre pressure, so we had to be very careful at certain points, but we did well on the dunes. We were under psychological pressure because we came within an inch of losing the Dakar yesterday. Victories are earned day by day and I still feel like I am in the race. There is still a 30-kilometre special to go and we could have a technical problem. I am still holding my breath this evening. I will breathe again once I am on the podium. 
As soon as we crossed the first dunes, we went over a crest and behind it was a sink hole, immediately penalising us as we got stuck. Time passed and the minutes seemed long. We lost at least 20 minutes, which meant that we would also lose the lead in the general standings. We cleared some sand and moved the car forward centimetre by centimetre to get out of there. Afterwards, I have to admit I took risks to claw the time back. That was the 50 km where I've attacked the most during the whole rally. In the end we caught up with Nani several kilometres from the finish, so he must have had problems too. I've been saying for a while that by getting stuck in the dunes it's possible to lose half an hour. Today we came close to a real setback. 
We didn't drive at a really fast pace, but we didn't have any technical or navigation problems, so it was a good special, but not very pleasant to drive because of the fesh-fesh. There wasn't much visibility, even opening the road, because the wind blew the dust up making it difficult to see. I overtook Nani several kilometres from the finishing line: he got stuck on a little dune trying to avoid a biker, but he didn't even need to get out of the car to get going again. As for Gordon, whatever happens now, he will just be carrying on to Lima for the enjoyment. There's around twenty minutes between Nani and me now, with two big stages of dunes to come. There'll be a lot of dune cresting and we know that if we get stuck in a hollow between them we could lose a lot of time. We'll have to play it safe. It's always been like that. Each time I've won the car race, I always had a team-mate hot on my heels: Masuoka, Alphand… There's always been this sort of pressure to handle. 
Today it was a big fight with Gordon. At the beginning he was a little bit slower than us. We overtook him when he made a navigation mistake, but at the end he overtook me again. He was really fast on a very short corner to the left, very tight, and he went straight on and jumped off a small cliff. I was sure that he rolled, but when I saw again through the dust he was on his wheels. I think something happened with his car, I don't know exactly why or what – maybe the tyre? I don't know… 
We limited the damage a bit, because it was still a special in the middle of the desert and rather tough. It depends on which special, but for a while we've been beaten fair and square. When the Hummers don't have any problems, they are a bit quicker than us. We're going to fight to hold on to the slender lead we have over him. I started to wonder if Nasser was having technical problems when I saw that he wasn't catching me up. It's true that we didn't see him all day long. It means that Gordon is on his own now and for us that makes things a little bit better. There are flaws with the Hummers. I just hope that we'll be able to take advantage of them. 
I am losing loads of time. I drove quite slowly in the rocky parts because I was scared of punctures. And despite this... I had one 30 km from the finish. It was a bad special, but that is the way it is. Gordon started three minutes before us, and 180 kilometres from here we had got to 30 seconds behind him. I think that when he saw us he stepped it up, leaving us in the dust. He can win this thing, so it is essential for him to manage this situation as well as he can. 
I expected the dunes to be tougher, but at the end it was a mix with camel grass. We never came close to getting stuck. There was a moment when we overtook Gordon, who had just stopped due to a flat tyre, but he later caught up with us and then overtook us at full speed. We tried to follow him but it was impossible. With his wide clearings, he was able to jump over the gaps! If we attempted to go that fast, we would roll over twice. We suffer a bit in these open desert areas. 
It was not an easy day, you know, Fiambala is always a very difficult stage. This morning we started first, so opening the road was not good, not easy normally, but we took our time to navigate well. We never lost the track. Sometimes we lost a little time to take the time just to be sure, but we never took the wrong turn. In the end we didn't do the best time, but a decent time I think. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scratch | 3 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 3 | - | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 10 |
| stage | 3 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 3 | - | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 10 |
| Overall | 3 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | - | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
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