The American/South African combination of Mark Miller and Ralph Pitchford are having their best Dakar together and moved up into second position overall after the ninth stage of the rally in Chile on Monday. They might well have won the stage instead of finishing 1 min 47 sec behind overall leaders and Volkswagen team-mates Carlos Sainz of Spain and Frenchman Michel Perin had it not been for a flat tyre when they were leading Sainz by 4 min 37 sec.
Mark Miller, enjoying the sand and dunes that marked this toughest stage so far more than Sunday?s WRC-type stage on fast gravel roads, moved ahead of South African team-mate Giniel de Villiers in the overall standings for the first time after De Villiers and his German co-driver Dirk von Zitzewitz dropped around 12 minutes when they got lost 80 km into the special stage.
Volkswagen now occupies the top three positions overall for the fourth day in a row and, amazingly, the three Race Touaregs are covered by only 22 minutes after nearly 28 hours of racing since the rally started in Buenos Aires on 3 January. Between them they have won seven of the nine stages completed.
The German pairing of Dieter Depping and Timo Gottschalk has dropped two places to 10th overall after being delayed on the stage when they hit a rock and had to stop and replace two rear wishbones, finishing 22nd.
The longest special stage of the Dakar awaits them on Tuesday. Stage 10 is a ?marathon stage? that takes the survivors on a 690-km loop from Copiapo back to Copiapo and includes a 670 km timed special through the heart of the Atacama desert. On the menu: dunes, sand and some off-roading, with sections of fast tracks thrown in for good measure. No night-time servicing is allowed except by registered participants, which means Volkswagen?s two MAN race trucks will be the Touaregs? only assistance if needed.
"We had a clean run today and, but for a slow puncture, might have won our first Dakar stage. We lost about five minutes when we stopped to change the tyre," said Pitchford. The important thing is a Volkswagen again won the stage and is leading overall."
Miller paid tribute to Pitchford?s navigation skills on a stage where route-finding was at a premium.
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