Dakar Rally

The Dakar Rally (or simply "The Dakar"; formerly known as "The Paris-Dakar" or "Paris to Dakar Rally") is an annual rally raid type of off-road automobile race, organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation. Most events since the inception in 1978 were from Paris, France, to Dakar, Senegal, but due to security threats in Mauritania which led to the cancellation of the 2008 rally, the 2009 Dakar Rally was run in South America (Argentina and Chile), the first time the race took place outside of Europe and Africa. It has stayed in South America from 2009 to the present (2011). The race is open to amateur and professional entries. Amateurs typically make up about eighty percent of the participants.


Despite its name it is an off-road endurance race, called a rally-raid rather than a conventional rally — the terrain the competitors traverse is much tougher and the vehicles used are true off-road vehicles rather than the modified on-road vehicles used in rallies. Most of the competitive special sections are off-road, crossing dunes, mud, camel grass, rocks and erg among others. The distances of each stage covered vary from short distances up to 800–900 kilometres (500–560 mi) per day.


2011 Dakar Rally

The 2011 Dakar Rally was the 32nd running of the event. It was held in Argentina and Chile for the third successive time, and ran from 1 to 16 January. The Amaury Sport Organisation and the governments of Argentina and Chile agreed to a return to South America for the event on 23 March 2010.


The rally concluded in Buenos Aires, with Vladimir Chagin of Russia achieving a record seventh victory in the truck division, at the wheel of his Kamaz, thus becoming the most successful driver in a single category in the history of the event. Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar and Timo Gottschalkof Germany won in the car division, giving Volkswagen their third successive victory in the car class. Marc Coma from Spain won his third Dakar in the motorcycle category, and Alejandro Patronelli of Argentina repeated the feat of his brother—Marcos Patronelli in 2010—to win the class for quad-bikes.

Motorcycles

KTM's Cyril Despres won the first two stages of the rally, to take an early lead of over two minutes on fellow KTM rider Marc Coma. Coma closed the gap to just fourteen seconds after his win on the third stage, and took the overall lead on stage four with his second stage win as Despres lost over ten minutes on the stage, dropping him to second in the standings. Coma maintained his lead overall until the end of the race, taking further stage wins in stages eight, ten and twelve en route to his third victory in the event. Despres, a three-time winner himself, won stage eleven but ended the rally fifteen minutes behind Coma in second place. Aprilia's Francisco López Contardomoved into third position after the fourth stage, and having won the seventh stage, had been set to complete the podium behind Coma and Despres. However on the final stage, López Contardo suffered a mechanical failure 22 kilometres (14 mi) from the finish line and lost over an hour to his rivals. His misfortune allowed Hélder Rodrigues, riding a Yamaha to take third place. López Contardo took fourth position, almost half an hour behind Rodrigues.