Motorcycles and news

Positioning his Mitsubishi Pajero on the podium in front of the “Pasino”, the Island of Djerba’s famous casino, Stéphane Peterhansel breathes a big sigh of relief. After a disappointing start to the season and a Dakar stalemate, three days from the end, “Peter” retook the reins on his career here in Tunisia, the starting place of his exploits, at the wheel of his works Mitsubishi Pajero. Untouchable from one end to the other, the four time winner of this rally managed the fine balance between reliability and performance, knocking down his opponents like swatting flies. Winner of three stages, he managed to control the pace at his will, shaking up the leadership when he saw fit. Out of the leaders, only Giniel De Villiers (VW racing TOUAREG 2) and Jean-Louis Schlesser (Buggy Ford) were able to follow the pace set by the eight time runner up of Dakar. Winning his second stage, today at Djerba, the South African (second also at Dakar), showed the work (for the entire VW team) that was still left to do on the suspension. As for Jean-Louis Schlesser and his powerful blue “Scarabee”, he has also some work to do, to compete with the 4×4, to come up with a solution for the “camel grass”. Beaming with his best film star smile, on the bottom of the podium, the Polish Krzysztof Holowczyc (Nissan Pickup Dessoude) could not hide his joy at being just behind the best, on this, his third African rally. Finishing just in front of a pack of “Bugs” led by the Russian Shmakov (Buggy Honda), who made the best of the forced abandon of Philippe Gache (Buggy SMG) victim of major mechanical problems this morning, to finish fifth just in front of the Nissan of Alain Thulliez. They were five Buggies in all, to finish inside the top ten this year. First woman across the line was Isabelle Patissier (Buggy Mitsubishi) with an eight place overall, whilst the Portuguese Madalena Antas (Nissan Pickup Promotech) rounds off the top ten beautifully.

With the bikes, everybody was waiting to see the KTM Gauloises Duo. After the strategic move of Esteve, Sunday at Ksar Ghilaine, David Casteu didn’t want to make a fussletting his team mate catch him up and, .win the event on his all new blue KTM 660. Second in the world title of 2005, second in Argentina a couple of weeks ago, the rider from Nice France chose to be contented with a runners up here in Djerba, behind his Spanish team mate. Never the less he takes the lead in the world championship followed by the Norwegian Pal Anders Ullevalseter (KTM LC4), who will normally climb on the third place of the podium. Flat out on the last two stages, Jacek Czachor (Poland) confirmed today his domination of the 450s in front of the Italian Polli and the Franco-Uraguayan, Laurent Lazard (KTM 450), who claiming a seventh in the overall, also goes provisionally to the top of the world championship. Ninth overall on his Yamaha Raptor 700, Christophe Declerck not only won his category but he managed to keep his top ten place, with more than three hours in front of Bernard Barra.

Final Stage results
1. I.ESTEVE PUJOL KTM 3h04′54″000 
2. D.CASTEU KTM 3h06′48″000 + 01′54″00  
3. J.CZACHOR KTM 3h17′57″000 + 13′03″00 
4. P-A.ULLEVALSETE KTM 3h21′09″000 + 16′15″00 
5. O.POLLI KTM 3h26′01″000 + 21′07″00  
6. M.SANNA COCCO KTM 3h36′36″000 + 31′42″00 
7. G.TIXADOR KTM 3h36′57″000 + 32′03″00 
8. L.LAZARD KTM 3h38′44″000 + 33′50″00  
9. C.PORTAL KTM 3h40′16″000 + 35′22″00 
10. C.DECLERCK Yamaha 3h41′34″000 + 36′40″00