Dakar Rally 2015 - Stage 4

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Bikes

Spaniard Joan Barreda leads the standings, but he knows he must extend his lead if he wants to win in the end. Marc Coma and Paulo Gonçalves are breathing down his neck, and Austrian Matthias Walkner also drew attention to his skills as a motorcyclist with his victory yesterday.

100'000 km Dakar
Miguel Puertas currently finds himself in 83rd place in the standings, over 5 hours behind Joan Barreda, but that is not important to him. He does not want to crown his 11th Dakar with victory, but a completely different motivation drives him: "My goal this year is to make it to the end, to reach the 100,000 km at the Dakar!"

The youngest driver
At just 18 years old, Jorge Lacunza is the youngest rider at the 2015 Dakar, but he is putting in a solid performance on his KTM and currently sits in 63rd place.

Marc Coma is the first to reach Chile and soon arrives on the 315km Special section, which features rocky terrain and desert areas. In contrast, Pawel Stasiaczek is the only one of the 139 motorcyclists who did not even show up for the start today. Toby Price is unfortunate: starting in fourth place, he gets lost and goes off course for about 1 kilometer, which costs him a good 20 minutes until he finds his way back. Marc Coma catches Matthias Walkner in the meantime. Together with Joan Barreda the bikers are leading, but the two Spaniards soon hang the Austrian, who seems to be weakened by the previous, about 600 km long connecting section. Once again it hits Sam Sunderland, who is forced to stop. The same fate Ivan Jakes, but later he can continue again. Jeremias Israel Esquerre is also thrown back. Starting from 8th place today, he only passes Checkpoint 1 in 58th place.

The "entrance" to Chile has to be earned: Heavy back-breaking work awaits the riders, as they are sometimes allowed to climb to an altitude of 4,800 meters in order to cross the border at the San Francisco Pass. After a sporty warm-up, the sandy Atacama Desert awaits the riders, and on the last 40 kilometers, which many riders will reach at night, huge sand dunes near Copiapo block the way for the bikers.

In the end, it is once again Joan Barreda who can celebrate his day's victory a good 2 minutes ahead of Marc Coma. Pablo Quintanilla celebrates his arrival in his homeland with an excellent third place. The big losers of today's stage are Matthias Walkner and Paulo Gonçalves: The Portuguese lost 14'56 min. to Joan Barreda, Matthias Walkner even 22'55 min. It became clear today that Barreda and Coma are in the same league.

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Quads

The special stage could not start worse for yesterday's winner Lucas Bonetto. The Argentinean stops at kilometer 89 and works on his quad. Rafal Sonik's reliability is the reason for his lead. He always finished all special stages among the first four riders. He crosses checkpoint 1 as the first rider, closely followed by Nelson Sanabria Galeano. But the Paraguayan does not enjoy his second place for long, he has to take care of the technical problems of his quad at kilometer 160. In the end, the Pole wins the 4th stage and extends his lead.

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Trucks

In the trucks, a clear dominance of Kamaz drivers is emerging. Russians Airat Mardeev, Eduard Nikolaev and Andrey Karginov take turns in stage wins, closely followed by Czech ales Loprais and Dutchman Hans Stacey. This stage goes. This stage goes narrowly to Nikolaev in small distances from his teammates. It seems that one of the three Kamaz drivers will be on the top of the podium in the end.

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