TEAMS IN GOOD POSITIONS FOR FIRST STAGE IN MAURITANIA

Team Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart completed the final Moroccan special in a good position to pose a serious threat to their leading rivals, as the event heads into the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.

Stéphane Peterhansel and Jean-Paul Cottret made the second fastest time after 325km of high-speed driving through a wide variety of punishing roads. "I feel better about our performance today, but it was not easy to make a fast time", said Peterhansel. "There were many stones and it was easy to get a puncture."

"The route led past the location where I had that accident on the Rally of Morocco in June," said Roma, "And that was never going to be easy. I just had to concentrate."
"We had a flat rear tire at 20km and then we had two more rear punctures in the next 120km," said Masuoka. "I was scared, because I had no spare tires left. If I had one more flat tire I would have been in trouble. But we were lucky and only dropped 10 minutes."

"In two days’ time, we will do another check to see if we are still losing time, or whether our strategy is wrong.”, said Dominique Serieys. "Three or four days in Mauritania will be very tough. We might be talking about differences of 30 minutes per day."

  

Stage classification on SS15 

1 G De Villiers / D Von Zitzewitz Volkswagen Race Touareg 7:42
2 Carlos Sainz / Michel Perin Volkswagen Race Touareg 7:44
3 Robby Gordon / Andy Grider Hummer 8:08
4 Carlos Sousa / Andreas Schulz Volkswagen Race Touareg 8:24
5 Jean-Louis Schlesser / Arnaud Debron Schles-Ford-Raid 8:25
10 Joan Roma / Lucas Cruz Senra Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution 8:59
23 Hiroshi Masuoka / Pascal Maimon Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution 9:52
51 Stéphane Peterhansel / Jean-Paul Cottret Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution 10:52
53 Luc Alphand / Gilles Picard Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution 11:02

Final overall clasification 

1 Stéphane Peterhansel / Jean-Paul Cottret Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution 45:53:37
2 Luc Alphand / Gilles Picard Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution 46:01:03
3 Jean-Louis Schlesser / Arnaud Debron Schles-Ford-Raid 47:27:34
4 Mark Miller / Ralph Pitchford Volkswagen Race Touareg 48:03:53
5 Hiroshi Masuoka / Pascal Maimon Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution 48:38:08
13 Joan Roma / Lucas Cruz Senra Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution 55:30:06
Sponsor: Repsol Sponsor: Valeo Sponsor BF Goodrich