Coma wins as Helder takes crown

The KTM Repsol rider Marc Coma won half of the stages and achieved at the Pharaohs Rally his third triumph of the year in the World Championship. But the crown went to second-ranked in Egypt, Helder Rodrigues (Red Bull Yamaha). Coma was able to show one more year his dominion of the Pharaohs Rally, a round he has won for the fifth time (he did it in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2010). The Repsol rider was again very superior on the Egyptian sand and achieved victory in a race he dominated for the first stage. Winner of three of the six stages of the race, Coma took his third victory of the year in the World Championship, as he won the three races where he has participated. A specialist on the dunes of any desert in the world, Coma showed again why he is four times World Championship of this sport and has three Dakar winner trophies. The Repsol rider imposed his authority in the classic Raid race that since 1982 is held on the Egyptian dunes, one of the most iconic races of the speciality, by winning the first stage and managing his advantage day after day. In the final stage of the preparations for the 2012 Dakar, the Pharaohs Rally was set on Com'as calendar to try and pick up the racing pace after intensifying his physical preparation in the last few weeks. Nevertheless, from the first day the Repsol rider showed he had a very competitive level and he won the first stage by almost four minutes over the second. While in the second stage he lost part of that margin, he won the third stage, increasing his lead by more than twelve minutes over the second placed. In the second half of the rally, he was again conservative in the fourth stage, losing four minutes in the overall classification, but still with an advantage of more than ten minutes overall. Taking advantage of his KTM 450 Rally being perfectly suited to the Egyptian dunes, he won again in the longest stage of the round, with more than 540km, 444 of them timed, then securing today his fifth victory in Cairo. With the Great Pyramid of Giza as the witness the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Anciant World that remains, Marc Coma achieved his third victory of the year in the World Championship, from the three races he has participated. Together with his triumph at the Dakar Last January in Buenos Aires, Coma will try to confirm this great 2011 with a good result in the Morocco Rally next month. "I am very satisfied. It was one of the hardest editions of the rally, that I remember of, so the victory becomes even more important. We kept a good pace, although as with a 14-minute advantage we took the stage a bit more calmly than the rest", Coma said. "I have very good feelings with the bike, as during these days we were able to take another step forward in the evolution. The high temperatures and the technical demands of the rout forced us to keep a high level of concentration." Helder was also an happy man after the final stage on Saturday after he won the title. "I put much work in that objective and I thought I deserved to be champion today", he said. "I can now focus on improving my performances in the Dakar Rally".