bike
Ready for a fight
It's feeling good. After a difficult day yesterday when you start to doubt, I had to get back to winning ways. It wasn't easy to psyche myself up for it, but I'm very happy with my day's work. We came into this looking at a battle for seconds or minutes. It's very competitive. Like any top level sportsman, if you don't like confrontation or squeezing the last ounces of strength out of yourself, then you're not ready for a fight. But, as for me, I'm up for it.
bike
We're coming to the crunch
We knew that this would be a difficult race. It was long and there was plenty of navigation to deal with. We're coming to the crunch part of the rally. Cyril is a major rival and we do battle over every single kilometre. But I think it's interesting, it's sport. Yesterday, the KTM technicians decided it was time to change our engines because we'd reached the half-way point. It's a very good idea.
bike
Anything is possible
It's a mythical stage of the rally, very long and with lots of navigation. I rode at a good pace, to try and stay in contact with Marc and Cyril. I think that if I continue like that it will be a good rally. Marc and Cyril are fighting for the general standings lead and are very quick. Can they still make mistakes? Anything is possible.
bike
It's been a good day
It was quick and difficult, dangerous with lots of dust and rocks. At the end, there was some navigation to tackle and it was possible to lose everything we'd battled for during the day. I had a few difficulties with the way points. I was 30” behind Cyril Despres, but I lost my way little so I decided to slow down a bit to make sure I didn't make any mistakes. For me, finishing here after the difficult last 50 kilometres of navigation is very positive. It's new to me and I'm happy to have managed to tackle it properly. It's been a good day.
car
We pushed hard
It was a very good special for us again. Now it's just a waiting game to see how soon Peterhansel comes behind me. On the transfer stage, I think we had him beat by about a minute and a half. But we need more than a minute and a half, so I pushed very hard on the last section, as hard as I could go the whole time and it will be interesting to see how much time we put on him because we pushed, like qualifying hard, not really knowing where you're going. We had a couple of big scary moments. For us, we've got to make time. We're in a different position to him. He has to conserve his time and I've got to make it. We've got four days left, four real days of racing left and the Hummer's strong. 19 seconds? He made a lot of time up on me, then. I can't believe he could catch us there, because we were going crazy. So he's a madman; if he beats us, he's a madman. Madder than me!
car
We've been beaten fair and square
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.
car
I rolled the car onto the roof
95% of the stage was very good. On the last section, we missed the road, I tried to back up and rolled the car onto the roof. We asked spectators to help and a biker stopped as well. I must say a big, big thank you to him. We put the car back on its wheels and restarted, but we lost a lot of minutes. That's what happens when you push too much. But, for sure, we're still in the game, it's happened now and that's rallies, they're like that. We were pushing, pushing, pushing; nothing more, just 10 km from here. We missed the road and I tried to back up and that was it. One time we missed the road and Stephane overtook us. Afterwards we came back and on the stony area, I overtook him and we made a one minute gap again. It's not so bad, we feel confident and the road was good for me. But at the end there was just one mistake.
truck
We had had a very good fight from day one
The first part was very hard, but we had a good fight with Ales. He made a mistake on a navigation part and I passed him then was just in front of him. That was the big goal today, just to stay close to him. So the rest of the day went great for Miki. Ales started again with a crash. I don't know how they are, but the truck is finished I heard. I don't know about the crew inside, but I hoped they wore their safety belts. But, yes, it was not good for him. It was a nice stage, especially the last part. Normally I would have had a good fight, but then it was a bit boring, though I was thinking about Loprais. We had a very good fight from day one and he was very close. Yesterday and today we were fighting together really hard, but I'm really sad it has to end like this. But that's life, I think.
quad
Winning the category is out of my reach now
We rode almost all the stage together; In the end, over the last 60 kilometres, we were neck and neck. It was a superb stage, quick and a bit tricky on some parts with dunes at the end; I was a bit worried at the beginning of the stage because there were a lot of stones. There was still a long way to go and I was scared of getting a puncture. I'm happy with my machine because the Yamaha is working well. I'm more than an hour behind, so winning the category is out of my reach now, but finishing each day and getting through the stages until Lima is my goal.
community