After a very, very long drive, the McRae buggies finish stage 7.

Some pictures of the finish with some really tired drivers.

Its been a really long stage that has taken our drivers nearly 2 Days, but they have finally reached the bivouac.  Its now 2.oo in the afternoon in Chile. So they have the rest of the day to sleep and rest while the mechanics go mental on the cars.

17:46 pm – Tim is also just finally arrived in the camp.

17:10 pm – Chris Leyds just arrived in the camp, and now Tim is with Pascal.

Update 12.54: Chris and Tim passed CP5 and are heading to the finish. There is 180 kilometers left, so they should be able to get their in time. They still have nine hours left to reach the finish.

Update 0.15: Both Chris and Coronel reached checkpoint two. 55 cars already passed the 355 kilometers point, so looking at the standings of Chris and Tim at the previous point, they should reach the next point any minute if there are no problems.

Update 19.19: Chris and Coronel are both passed 141.0 km. Coronel in 38th place and Chris in 58th place. It seems Coronel is struggling with a problem between 141.0 km and CP3 (227.0 km), already 51 drivers have reached CP3.

Update 16.32: Coronel already passed the first checkpoints and is now in place 45 (which means he gained 19 places at this moment). Chris on the other hand did not reached the first checkpoint yet.

Update 11.07: Both Coronel and Leyds starting times are announced.
67 (347) Coronel T. 010h10’00″
75 (369) Leyds C. 010h18’30″

Today the McRae buggies will have to face the longest stage in the Dakar. A stage with starts in Iquique (where the special stage ended yesterday) and will end back into Antofagasta (which we already know from stage 6). With 600 kilometer of special stage this stage will be an exhausting long drive. With a great deal of different kinds of terrain, it will be challenging.

Dakar.com says:

641 km are on the menu of stage 7 including 600 km (!) against the clock, i.e. the longest stage in this 32nd edition. No chance of boredom however for the contenders who will have to face the most versatile route of the Dakar this year. The stage will start with 40km of sand dunes; then contenders will hit brittle or even very brittle terrain and even a 3km “Salar” (salt flat) they will need to cross and where it will be hard to drive faster than 10 km/h!… Other peculiarity of stage 7 is the neutralization of the race at km 177 for a 50-km liaison on asphalt to drive around a natural reserve. The contenders will start racing again at km 227, with a fast track cut off by windy sections and some off-track on rocks… In a nutshell a particularly varied menu with a lot of spicy parts just before the rest day, which allowed the organizers to push the end to 6:00PM the next day so that a maximum number of contenders would have the opportunity to reach Antofagasta within the time limits and go on with their rally raid.

Starting times are yet to be announced, so we try to keep you up to date.

Dakar.com

Dakar.com