Title holder Gerard de Rooy (Iveco) regained his form and served up a superb battle against Airat Mardeev (Kamaz) who he beat by only 30 seconds on completion of the 416-km special, to give the Dutchman his 31st stage victory on the Dakar. Kolomy had an off-day, finishing 20th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmjKfAeSEJM&index=1&list=PLH0Av5DXFbhcXTGoTF6Bn4wHOTS3Id8ym

Stage 4, from SAN SALVADOR DE JUJUY to TUPIZA is measuring 521 km, of which 416 km were a speed trial, and  included the border crossing from Argentina to Bolivia. The competitors drove through the mountains and dune fields in the end.

Kamaz was very strong, disaster struck Kolomy. After losing 1′30″ he is now 13th overall, with teammate Loprais 11th overall.

OVERALL

The third stage is over. Nothing pleasant really. We started from the 12^th position, so we could expect a lot of dust and overtaking. We were quite successful in the first part of the measured section, and we finished in fourth place. We suffered through the connecting stretch of the stage approximately 500 km long. I do not like it, as one drops out of the race rhythm, but nothing can be done about it. We succeeded in the second part of the measured trial, we were achieving stable times, and it seemed that we would improve our tomorrow’s starting position. We were in fifth place at the last WP, with the loss of around 4 minutes to the first truck. But in the last part, about 20 km before the finish, we encountered a technical problem. Servo pump. It was exchanged recently. What can I say. We lost half an hour, dropped down to 17^th place in the stage and overall, we are in 13^th place. We go on!

Tomorrow the stage will take us from SAN SALVADOR DE JUJUY to TUPIZA. This fourth stage measuring 521 km, of which 416 km will be a speed trial, will be the same for all categories and includes crossing the border from Argentina to Bolivia. We will drive in the mountains and the organizer promises dune fields in the end. The first truck will depart at 14.54 CET.

Kolomy is doing extremely fine, finishing 2nd in stage 3 while Loprais came home 17th.

OVERALL AFTER STAGE 3:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFAOSe1iAq4

I am glad that the today’s stage is already behind us. It was agony. Crazy heat, almost 50°C outdoors and almost 80°C in the cabin. I am still fighting with an illness, so I turn up the heating a little bit. Pretty harsh! However, the heat is with all of us. Our loss is 5.09 minutes to the winner, which is not much and the crunch will come somewhere else. This just shows how equal the competitors are this year and the differences are minimal. I am still getting to know the truck and I believe that we will be friends.

What awaits us tomorrow? The stage from SAN MIGUEL DE TUCAMAN to SAN SALVADOR DE JUJUY that measures a total of 757 km where the speed trial for the trucks will be 199 km long. We will rise up to the mountains, but the temperatures will pester us quite a lot.

The third stage is supposed to be absolutely off-road. There will be several crossings over river and each of them can bring about potential problems, especially in the estimate of depth and hidden traps in the form of stones. Simply Dakar …

Your support helps us. Greetings from Ales Loprais

Stage 2:

OVERALL STANDINGS :