Stage 5 Of Dakar 2017 Halted Midway Due To Bad Weather

Confusion prevails in stage five as top riders get lost in the stage. Bad weather has halted the stage halfway

The fifth stage of the rally starts from Tupiza and ends at Oruro and is entirely on the Bolivian Altiplano which means high tableland of Central South America. In true Dakar spirit, the stage gives competitors and crew virtually no time to get acclimatized to the frigid high altitude plains. The terrain also plays its part as riders race through 442km of one of the most demanding and confusing stages of Dakar that will have riders rely entirely on GPS and it is very easy to get lost here.

That's what happened at the start as Joan Barreda (HRC), stung by yesterday's one-hour penalty was desperate to make some time. He overtook the previous day’s leader Pablo Quintanilla (Husqvarna) and fellow rider Michael Metge (HRC) and was doing well until he took a wrong turn past the second waypoint. In the heat of the race, four riders including Qiuntanilla, Metge, Stefan Svitko (KTM) and Xavier De Soultrait (Yamaha) followed Barreda and got lost as well. Later Adrien Van Breven (Yamaha) and Pierre-Alexandre Renet (Husqvarna) too went down the wrong route as the others.

This effectively cleared a path for Matthias Walker who created a huge gap between himself and the rest but eventually got lost himself. The mistake cost him dearly as he lost time and missed out on a first-place finish.

It was a good day for the Indian contingent as amidst all the confusion, Joan Pedrero (Sherco TVS) managed to finish in fourth position while teammate Adrien Metge finished 21st. Joaquim Rodrigues (Hero Speedbrain) finished 11th while fellow teammate CS Santosh climbed up eight places and finished in 60th position.

The weather gods decided to join the party in the later part of the stage. The stage was halted at the 219km point as the way ahead was not negotiable due to bad weather conditions.

Sam Sunderland (KTM) kept his wits around him and managed to stay ahead when the stage was halted which effectively put him in first place. Paulo Goncalves (HRC) was seven minutes behind and followed by Van Breven who realized his mistake early on and got back on the right track which allowed him to finish the stage in third place.