First leg: Buenos Aires – Villa Carlos Paz
Link section: 144 km – Special: 175 km – Link section: 519 km – Total: 838 km
The first Special of this seventh South American Dakar was a fairly easy one with rolling tracks and right-angled corners among the Argentine crops. The rains of the past few days had left behind pools of mud and puddles of water but nothing too catastrophic.
Sam Sutherland, who has moved from Honda to KTM, started his Dakar at a cracking pace, offering a win in the first Special to the Austrian factory team, just 5 seconds ahead of Paolo Goncalves. The road ahead is a long one, and the British rider hopes to be at the front of the field at the end as well as the beginning. Paolo Goncalves is very keen to forget the bitter taste left in his mouth when his Honda burned out last year. In third position, 1'12 behind Sunderland, reigning champion Marc Coma (KTM) is happy to have found his pace and got this first very fast Special under his belt without any mistakes. Joan Barreda (Honda) finished just behind Coma and 1'41 behind Sunderland. He is happy with his “warm-up” and looking forward to tomorrow’s Special, one of the longest of the Rally, with lots of navigation in the second section. France’s Alain Duclos (Sherco) put in a good performance, coming 5th ahead of Jeremias Israel (Honda) and David Casteu (KTM), as did Matthias Walkner, a new recruit from MotoCross, who came 8th. It was a quieter start for Jordi Viladoms and Olivier Pain, who is comfortable with his high-speed Yamaha and has a considerable upside potential.
In quad, Ignacio Casale made his mark from the off, leaving Rafal Sonik one minute behind, followed by Sergio Lafuente in third. But the Polish quad biker is still smiling: “The two times I dropped out of the Dakar, it was the first day”, he recalls. “Today I am here in the bivouac of Villa Carlos Paz, so all is well!”.