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Peterhansel stretches his lead in rally

Stephane Peterhansel, bottom, leads the race with his Mitsubishi Pajero, ahead of Japan's Hiroshi Masuoka, also driving a Pajero and Finn Ari Vatanen with Swedish co-pilot Tina Thorner, top, in their Nissan Pick Up, yesterday, in Egypt. PHOTO: AFP

Stephane Peterhansel of France came fifth in the 13th stage of Wednesday's Dakar rally from Siwa to reinforce his lead over Japanese driver Hiroshi Masuoka.

Peterhansel, who now has a lead of 25 minutes, 50 seconds over his closest rival, then admitted to keeping a slower tempo than he's been used to in the rugged endurance race -- partly because he'd heard his frightened son's voice on the telephone the evening before.

"Last night I spoke to my 13-year-old son on the telephone and he told me, `Dad, you've got a big enough lead now,'" Peterhansel said after the race.

"I could hear it in his voice, which was trembling a bit, that he must have been shocked by seeing some of the pictures from the race. He must be saying to himself, `Dad, you've got to calm it.'"

Peterhansel's improved lead, up almost a minute and a half from the previous day, was a welcome surprise.

"We started off pretty slowly, and Hiroshi caught up with us pretty quickly because our tempo was a lot slower than it has been the past few days," added the Frenchman.

"Last night I spoke to my 13-year-old son on the telephone and he told me, `Dad, you've got a big enough lead now.'"

Stephane Peterhansel

"If you take your foot off the pedal a bit and are less aggressive you end up with major gaps. We could slow up, but in doing so we might lose 15 minutes, which is huge."

Finland's former world rally champion Ari Vatanen, in a Nissan, won the stage over the 569km of special to come in 1:18 ahead of Frenchman Luc Alphand, with South African Giniel De Villiers third at 8:22.

The flying Finn built on his flawless form the previous day, but had a rather large sand dune to help him set a burning pace.

"We had set down a pretty fast rhythm and quite a lot of cars were following us," said Vatanen.

"When I caught Luc [Alphand] just 50km after the start there was a very big dune up ahead. We flew over it and upon landing I felt a pain in my back.

"Straight away I knew something was wrong with the car and when I looked down I could see my accelerator was stuck permanently in the forward position.

"It wouldn't budge, so from then on I just let it rip."

In the motorbike section Italian Fabriozio Meoni (KTM) won the stage to hold off Richard Sainct of France, who retains the race lead and believes he has the race won.

"I couldn't go any faster today. We took some risks because the special was more like a motocross event than a technically-demanding run," said Meoni.

Sainct came second, at 13:16, with compatriot Cyril Despres in third a few seconds further back.

"The special was very long and actually quite fast overall -- like most of the days since the start of the rally, in fact," said Sainct, who endured a mechanical problem.
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