OWN CORRESPONDENT, Bamako | Saturday 8.00pm.
JAPAN’s Kenjiro Shinozuka and Spain’s Joan Roma won the third stage of the Paris-Dakar rally on Saturday to extend their overall lead in the car and motorbike sections.
Shinozuka, in his Mitsubishi, slightly increased his advantage in this 670km stretch with 399km of specials between Nioro and Bamako in Mali, but Roma’s KTM now leads by more than 12 minutes over BMW’s Richard Sainct.
Shinozuka gained 1min 14sec on his teammate Jean-Pierre Fontenay of France in this 22nd Dakar race.
At the same time, in placing his buggy in among the Japanese 4x4s, France’s Jean Louis Schlesser limited time loss over a section of the rally he knew would not be favourable to his two wheel drive buggy.
Driver-constructor Schlesser lost five minutes, but in total he is only just under nine minutes down on Shinozuka overall.
Roma finished the stage 9min 4sec ahead of Italy’s KTM rider Fabrizio Meoni and 9:20 in front of KTM team manager Heinz Kinigadner, but most importantly for the KTM team, 11:34 up on the leading BMW rider Sainct of France who finished fifth.
Roma leads by 12:15 over Sainct with Meoni in 3rd at 19:17 and Kinigadner fourth with 24:27.
Austria’s Kinigadner said: “Today was real tough going, all 2nd and 3rd gear stuff which suited the KTMs much more than the BMWs.” — AFP