Stéphane Peterhansel: “It was a terrible 48-hour stage”

Dakar 2024 | Stage 6 | SHUBAYTAH > SHUBAYTAH
January 12 ^th 2024 - 12:12 [GMT + 3]

Problems have been flying thick and fast for Stéphane Peterhansel. After punctures and strategy errors that plagued his start to the rally, the Audi driver experienced new misadventures during the long 48-hour special. This time it was a leaking hydraulic jack that caused Mr Dakar to lose nearly three hours in the dunes of the Empty Quarter.

“For us, this long stage of 48 hours was really complicated. At the beginning, the first 200 km were ok, but afterwards we lost a tyre from the rim, so it was necessary to use a hydraulic jack to change the wheel and when we used it the hydraulic jack exploded. All the oil was everywhere and it wasn’t possible to continue like that because the jack was down, so it was necessary to remove it. To remove it, it was necessary to disassemble half of the bodywork. It was really complicated, so we lost 2 hours, or even more than two hours. It is also the same hydraulic system for the power steering, so we also lost the power-steering. We had a little bit of oil, but not enough compared to what we lost. So that was yesterday and today when we did the refuelling we had a big alarm on the car just when it was time to restart. There was nothing special with the refuelling, but there was a red alarm, which means the car can be really dangerous with the high voltage, so it was necessary to call the engineers to carry out some process on it whilst we stayed out of the car for forty minutes again. It was a terrible 48-hour stage”.