Dakar Rally : News from leg 12484 km, including 257 against the clock, are on the menu of the 12th stage. The competitors are now leaving sand behind and entering savannah ground.
Typical WRC super fast sections are back on the programme with some forest sections
as well. This should allow Volkswagen and Carlos Sainz to come back on top after their Mauritanian ordeal. All the more so that the Mitsubishi pilots, including of course overall rankings leader Stéphane Peterhansel, will play it safe in order not to compromise the final sprint.
Before the start of this 12th special stage, 311 teams including 140 bikes, 111 cars and 60 trucks were still in the race.
Be it Portuguese biker Helder Rodrigues, the first one to start out this morning, or Spaniard Marc Coma or even Frenchman Cyril Despres, it's the whole pack at the head of the race that got lost in the 85th km of today's special stage and had to loop for about 10 km before getting back on the right track.
