The 7th Stage starts and ends today at the bivouac in Copiapo. The longest stage takes on a loop of 419 km of gravel initially and later on sand dunes. The stage is neutralized to about half, because the route runs through a nature reserve, in which one is engaged in excavations of dinosaur bones.
Bikes
The Dakar is really running for Francisco Lopez is anything but good in previous stages he had his problems, he crashed and damaged the day while his machine and his Iritrack navigation system. It comes as the 22nd the finish and lost a whole 30 minutes on the top. Whether the Chilean in the 8th Stage can participate is questionable. At the head again today, the two KTM's of depression and coma. Although depression starts first, but quickly collected from Coma. Coma may make a further dent in the tank for the stage win, but he took out only 2 minutes to depression, which still leads the overall standings with almost 8 minutes before the coma. A strong performance today offers the Portuguese Paulo Goncalves, with his Husqvarna he has secured the third position of the stage with about a minute ahead of his compatriot Helder Rodrigues and third overall. Daniel Schroeder, the German privateer KTM manages its day to 26 Place and ends up in the overall standings at the 32th
Cars
Holowczyc starts with his X-Raid Mini today as the first stage, but against the mighty Hummer by Nasser Al-Attiyah and Robby Gordon have no chance today, the minis. De Villiers is initially good on gravel but it has in the sandy circuit section can be problematic with the Hilux he loses today 6 minutes and ultimately ends up on the 6th Space of the stage. In the overall standings, the Toyota team at Villiers and Dirk von Zitzeritz located on the 5th Location. Only 8 minutes behind at the 6th Overall rank sort, a stage winner of today's Al-Attiyah, he could make up for today seven and a half minutes, and fight your way slowly towards the front of top 5. The lobsters are generally very fast today and take advantage of their advantage that they can adjust the tire pressures during the ride. Today vary the tire pressure of 0.6 bar lobster sections in the Sandy and 2.5 in the rocky area. The all-wheel-driven X-Raid have this possibility and therefore need not address the whole stage with the same pressure. Robby Gordon has secured P2 today and is third overall with a 2-minute distance to the second-placed Holowczyc and 13min on Peterhansel.
Quads
The Petronelli brothers put on full attack again, but only for one of them is it a good day today. Also, Tomas Maffei, second overall, comes in, he loses problems at the beginning of the stage 30 minutes, he finished the stage as the 6th with 54 minutes behind the stage winner. Really bad it gets for Marcos Patronelli he quits the 7th Stage as the 11th with 1h20min behind his brother Alejandro takes the overall lead of the day.
Alejandro Petronelli now leads with almost an hour before Tomas Maffei and another 20 minutes on his brother, Marcos, who can abide in the overall standings to third place, as missing the fourth-placed Honda rider, Lucas Bonetto, already full 2:23 in the first place.
Trucks
There have been some leadership changes today at the trucks. First introduced Miki Biason, who later fell far through a puncture, then Hans Stacy of still only 8th place in the bivouac and come to the 419 kilometer stage, it is ultimately the new stage winner Gerard de Roy, who can be credited to another 2 minutes and thus further overall leader of the "big boats" remains.
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