The Peugeot 2008DKR leads the most enduring and tortuous two-week rally in the world, with 8 rounds now completed in week one of the legendary 9583km Dakar rally. The overall classification after stage 8 sees the Peugeot Sport dream team retain their leaderboard dominance following four 1-2 stage wins and two 1-2-3 wins. With Peterhansel currently in first place, Carlos Sainz in second, Sébastien Loeb in 8th and Cyril Despres in 14th place, five more battle stages await the V6 turbo diesel engines fitted to the four 2008 DKR16s before a winner emerges victorious on Saturday, 16 January.
Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena were overall rally leaders after stage 7 and their incredible maiden performances delivered a 1-2-3 leaderboard for the Peugeot Sport 2008 DKRs up to then, but it was to become an unfortunate stage 8 for the duo. They lost 6 minutes stuck in the sand at the start of the second half of the stage, and then rolled just around 10 kilometres from the finish. The crew were able to fix the car themselves and reach the stage finish with a time loss of 1h08m. Peterhansel has therefore taken the overall lead from Loeb.
Sébastien Loeb (PEUGEOT 2008 DKR n°314) said, “In quite a wide and fast river, I arrived a little bit to the right, but there was a channel just there. I didn’t see it at all, and came towards it at high speed. We hit the step as we came back out and that sent us into a series of rolls. The radiator was broken but we managed to fix it and put some water back in. We also changed the two rear wheels, which were broken. And then when we were about to set off again, we had a broken shaft. So we got out and pulled everything apart again. Finally we were able to get going after losing more than an hour. Our plan was always to come here to get some experience. OK, the first week went better than we expected as we were in the lead. Now the situation is less good. For that to happen less than 10 kilometres from the finish is frustrating, but that’s life. Now we have to carry on”.
Stéphane Peterhansel and Jean-Paul Cottret picked up a puncture and dropped 6 minutes but then fought back strongly at the end of stage 8 to take third place in the stage and reclaim the overall lead, with an advantage of 2m09s over Carlos Sainz.
Peterhansel (PEUGEOT 2008 DKR n°302) said, “It was a leg where plenty of stuff happened. We had a puncture and lost lots of time during the first part of the stage today. In the second part of the stage, there was the first proper off-road section, with some small dunes and what we call camel grass. We had good pace through there and clawed back more than five minutes. We ended up not too far off the leaders, but the main event on that stage was that Seb went off just in front of us. This destabilises the team a bit as we had three cars in front. Now we are two and that situation is a bit less comfortable. I’m back in the lead, but in any case it’s impossible to manage this advantage.”
