Volkswagen celebrated its seventh stage victory on the ninth leg of the 2009 Dakar Rally, maintaining its overall lead with stage winners Carlos Sainz/Michel Perin, ahead of two further Race Touareg vehicles.

The 537-kilometre leg from La Serena to Copiapo in Chile demanded concentrated performance of the navigators, particularly during the starting phase, and put a severe physical strain on the crews due to long off-road stretches with hard impacts and stony sections.

At first, Mark Miller/Ralph Pitchford looked like the stage winners for a long time. However, the American/South African duo lost about five minutes just before the finish because of a tyre change, but improved by one position in the overall classification. Miller/Pitchford took second place from their team colleagues Giniel de Villiers/Dirk von Zitzewitz, who lost 12.01 minutes on the ninth competition day due to a navigation error.

"We neither had any punctures nor any other problems ? as far as the technology goes, we got through perfectly," said De Villiers.

Un"fortunately, though, we completely got lost on two occasions. The first time, the wrong route we?d taken even matched the roadbook descriptions quite well; that?s why we noticed that we were lost only after five kilometres. That definitely cost us 15 minutes. But there are still some tough days ahead on which a lot can happen."