After being 30th in the stage ranking of Calama, Albert Llovera-Àlex Haro (Buggy MD Rallye) faced the 10th stage, Calama-Salta, with very high spirits and with the goal to keep improving in the overall ranking. Before the start of the tenth stage, Llovera-Haro were 42nd in the Dakar 2015 overall ranking, cars category, and they were 8th amongst the gasoline 2WD vehicles.
To reach the beginning of the special stage, the teams had to drive a road section of 400 km that took them to the Chile-Argentina border, where they started the special in an area called Salinas Grandes, at an altitude of 3600 metres. A last minute change meant that both cars and bikes were doing the same route.
In a very tough stage, due to the weather conditions, Llovera-Haro kept their spectacular progression finishing in 29th position with a time of 4h19’36”, 30 minutes more than their friend Nasser Al-Attiyah.
Another double win for Mini, although this time with different drivers at the top of the ranking. Nasser Al-Attiyah obtained another stage victory (3h49’59”), followed by Orlando Terranova +1’35” with a car of the same make. With this victory, Al-Attiyah gets a bit further in front (4’23”) in the overall ranking of his main competitor in the Dakar 2015, South African driver Giniel de Villiers.
As expected, the Argentinian tracks were more rally like, which was better for Albert’s driving style; here is what he had to say: We’ve really enjoyed this special, which was very fast and required strong brakes. The improvements the team made on the suspension and the brakes helped us a great deal. It was indeed a stage very accomodating to our driving style. Despite it all, they were not exempt from having some issues: We lost some time because our GPS didn’t validate the WP and CP. It was something to do with the GPS because we were always on the correct track.
The support of the fans received by Llovera-Haro keeps them motivated to continue in the competition: We are so grateful to have them backing us. No matter which village we are going through, we always hear supporting words and if required they help us with anything we need. Thank you so much.
The Dakar continues on its way to Buenos Aires through traditional tracks for this kind of rally event. These landscapes, apparently easy, tend to hide unpleasant surprises. This means that being excessively confident might ruin all the good work put forward until now. Moreover, the rain has probably affected the tracks leaving them in a poor state.
The route of the 11th stage, from Salta to Termas de Rio Hondo, is described as follows: it is one of the shortest stages of the race, 520 km, has a special stage of less than 200 km and long road sections both after the start in Salta and at the end, to reach Termas de Rio Hondo.
What will be the state of the tracks? At the moment, it is a mistery.
 Press service.
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