8/3/2019 Press CS 10an ETAPA9 Dakar2012 - Ing

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Tuesday, 10th January 2012

Carlos Sousa climbs to seventh overall

and comes closer to Leonid Novitskiy

Carlos Sousa confirmed today the seventh place overall in one of the mostmythical stages of the South American Dakar and one of the most

spectacular arrivals of all event, with the famous and steep descent towards

Iquique, with the Pacific Ocean in the horizon! Being the seventh fastest to

conclude the special stage with 556 km the longest in the whole rally, the

Portuguese driver from Great Wall keeps Novitskiys MINI under pressure,

getting closer to him for the second day in a row

At a moment when the race is its most decisive phase and the slightest mistake can

have serious consequences in terms of ranking, Carlos Sousa was again beyond

reproach at the wheel of the SUV Haval of the Chinese team Great Wall Motors.

With scarce technical means to compete with the main car teams, the Portuguese

driver has been making use of is extreme consistency and huge expertise to

consolidate a historic result to a team that began its relationship to the greatest rally in

the world only three years ago.

For now and by contrast with what happened to the winner from the last edition,

Carlos Sousa completed the longest stage of this Dakar, in a total of 565 km from

Antofagasta to Iquique, taking benefit from Nasser Al-Attiyahs withdrawal to climb

one more position overall and placing himself in seventh again, where he was after the

fifth stage.

It was a long and weary day, thats for sure, but we manage to succeed without any

great problems, despite some dangerous out of track passages and some serious

navigation work. My greatest helplessness is not being able to keep the same pace as

the MINIs It is frustrating watching then passing by and not being able to react. In

short, it is an uneven battle that we have to fight to the end, and continue to bet on

our consistency and the reliability that the Great Wall has shown until now,

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8/3/2019 Press CS 10an ETAPA9 Dakar2012 - Ing

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affirmed Carlos Sousa at the finishing line of the this ninth stage, where he gained

some time to Leonid Novitskiys MINI for the second day in a row.

We gained 51 seconds today, which is not much considering how far we are from

him overall about 15 minutes. Even though we know that it wont be easy to close

this gap until the end, we are going to try to keep him under pressure in the next

stages, promised the best Portuguese car driver.

Tomorrows stage, on Wednesday, is along the Pacific coast with a privileged view to

some of the best surf beaches in the world. The track connects the cities of Iquique

and Arica, in a total of 694 km and includes a special stage of 377 km, where the main

difficulty will be passing through the long the complex web of sand barriers and dunes

of the Atacama.

STAGE 9

Cl. Driver/Co-driver Car Time/Dif.

1st Gordon/Campbell Hummer 4h35m21s

2nd Peterhansel/Cottret MINI + 1m38s

3rd Roma/Prin MINI + 8m37s

4th Holowczyc/Fortin MINI + 10m39s

5th Leal dos Santos/Fiza MINI + 15m23s

6th De Villiers/Von Zitzewitz Toyota + 18m03

7th SOUSA/GARCIN GREAT WALL + 22m36s

()

38 ZHOU/MAIMON GREAT WALL + 2h15m50s

OVERALL AFTER STAGE 9

Cl. Driver/Co-driver Car Time/Dif.

1st Peterhansel/Cottret MINI 24h41m14s

2nd Gordon/Campbell Hummer + 5m58s

3rd Holowczyc/Fortin MINI + 16m49s

4th Roma/Prin MINI + 19m26s

5th De Villiers/Von Zitzewitz Toyota + 54m10s

6th Novitskiy/Schulz MINI + 1h29m20s

7th SOUSA/GARCIN GREAT WALL + 1h44m27s

()

27 ZHOU/MAIMON GREAT WALL + 10h05m26s

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