Roma wins stage, climbs to second place at Dakar Rally

Jan 12, 2012, 14:02 GMT

Arica, Chile - Nani Roma of Spain won Wednesday his third stage in the car section of the Dakar Rally to overtake US driver Robby Gordon and climb to second place in the overall standings.

Among the motorbikes, the stage win was for Spain's Joan Barreda, whom race organizers have dubbed as 'the unquestionable revelation of the 33rd Dakar in the bike category.'

Roma won the 10th stage of the prestigious offroad race, but only 21 seconds ahead of overall leader Stephane Peterhansel of France, the man who has won the most editions of the Dakar Rally. Gordon, in fourth place, lost 14:14 to Roma.

In the general standings, Peterhansel remains the comfortable race leader, while his Mini team-mate Roma now stands second 19:05 behind. Gordon, in his Hummer, has a 19:51 delay and is in third place.

In the motorbike section, defending champion Marc Coma of Spain trailed Barreda by 01:32. More importantly, however, Coma relegated his arch-rival Cyril Despres to third place and was himself 02:07 faster than the Frenchman.

This did not allow Coma to climb to the top of the general standings, but it came close. The Spaniard now stands just 21 seconds behind Despres.

'It's the tone that's been set for the rally and I think we'll keep on battling until the end,' Coma said, in comments posted in the Dakar Rally website.

One or the other of the two KTM bikers has won every edition of the Dakar Rally since 2005.

A total of 469 vehicles - cars, motorbikes, quads and trucks - set out from the Argentine seaside city of Mar del Plata on January 1. Only 303 vehicles remained in the race by Wednesday.

The 10th stage of the race took participants from Iquique to Arica, over a total of 694 kilometres of which 377 were timed. Ocean views and challenging sand dunes kept them on their toes in their last full stage in Chile.