If you have ever been lucky enough to fly over the Andes Mountains, you will have some sort of idea of what awaits the competitors during the third stage of the Dakar 2012 this Tuesday. As if squeezed by the hand of a giant, the rocks are laid out in strata, then suddenly cut off, offering the eyes a palette of red and orange nuances. On the ground, the reality is less poetic: on the day's special stage between San Rafael and San Juan, river bed crossings as well as potholes and rocks make the terrain particularly bumpy. The robustness of the machines will be put to the utmost test should the competitors make the slightest mistake.
The hierarchy drawn up over the first two stages is of course merely provisional. As everyone predicted, the favourite in the car category, Stephane Peterhansel is already in the lead, but will his team-mates on the Mini team and the Hummers allow him to take advantage of his dominance? Again, as everyone predicted, the favourite in the bike race, Marc Coma, rode his race to perfection on Monday, gaining the ascendency over his main rivals. Yet, Francisco Lopez on his Aprilia, or Coma's KTM team-mate, Cyril Desprès, who made a superb comeback on stage 2, are far from their last throw of the dice. The surprise at the beginning this Dakar 2012 lies in the quad category, incarnated by Uruguayan Sergio La Fuente. However, the Patronelli brothers and Tomas Maffei are most likely to be organising a riposte on their home terrain. As for the heavyweight confrontation between the trucks of Dutchmen Gerard De Rooy and Hans Stacey, not forgetting Russian driver Nikolaev, it will necessarily be the last of the day, but certainly not the least exciting. 291 kilometres of link stage are on the menu for breakfast, before 270 km of special stage for the bikes and quads and 208 km for the cars and trucks. The rally will be hitting the heights (almost 3000 metres in altitude on two occasions), in geographical and sporting terms… but with breakdown a constant threat.
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