Dakar 2011
Starting the Dakar Rally first this morning, after teammate Ruben Faria received a one-minute time penalty yesterday evening, Cyril Despres and his Red Bull KTM 450cc machine opened the piste the entire length of today’s special.
Despres easily took the enduro motorcycle racing victory 1’49 ahead of Marc Coma, with David Casteu third (at 3’46).
Overall Cyril leads Coma (KTM) by 2’35 with Ruben Faria (KTM) third at 6’13. In fourth is Francisco Lopez from Chile on the Aprilia, at 6.51, with Paolo Goncalves from Portugal on a BMW at 9.28 back.
Cyril Despres says: "I didn’t start off too fast and at about kilometre 110, in an 800 metre speed control zone, I turned around to see if anybody was behind me."
"Somewhat to my surprise I saw a white bike in the distance and said to myself; ‘there you go Cyril, you’ve been riding too slowly and you have lost 4 minutes to Marc’."
"After that I increased the pace a little and on arriving at the refuelling CP at kilometre 169 I saw I was leading Marc by 1 minute – so finally obviously it wasn’t him that I saw in the village!"
