Sucesso no Rali Rota da Seda: O piloto da Volkswagen Nasser Al-Attiyah e o seu co-piloto Timo Gottschalk conquistaram a sua primeira vitória em etapas na segunda etapa do Rally Rota da Seda e assumiu a liderança à geral.Esta é a 100ª vitória do Race Touareg, com motor TDI, que participou em 26 provas desde a sua estreia em 2004, conquistando onze vitórias à geral. Carlos Sainz e Lucas Cruz, Mark Miller e Ralph Pitchford e Giniel de Villiers com Dirk von Zitzewitz terminaram, respectivamente, em 2º, 3º e 4º lugares na etapa de hoje. Esta segunda etapa teve início em Kazan, capital da república russa do Tartaristão e ao longo da "nova" Estrada da Seda com 478 quilómetros levou os concorrentes até Bougourouslan. A auto-estrada de ligação entre a Europa Oriental e a Ásia, que está actualmente em construção, fez parte da especial.
Kris Nissen (Volkswagen Motorsport Director)
"With four Race Touareg vehicles in the top four places, we handled the first longer leg of the Silk Way Rally in an optimal manner. Among other things, there were three different factors which enabled the Race Touareg’s 100th stage win as well as its historic Dakar victory in January: innovative TDI technology, top-class drivers and co-drivers as well as outstanding engineers and mechanics.”
#100 – Giniel de Villiers (ZA), 4th place leg / 4th place overall
"Right at the start of the special stage we hit the ground hard in a dip and afterwards we experienced some slight misfiring and no longer had full engine power. Shortly after that, we missed a branch-off and Carlos was able to pass us. The rally is still long and anything’s possible even though we did lose a little more time than we’d have liked to.”
#101 – Carlos Sainz (E), 2nd place leg / 2nd place overall
"The route leads alongside and across the construction site of the new motorway. Long, quick sections on the gravel bed alternated with many branch-offs in the surrounding fields. After passing Giniel we had to open the leg – this was not an easy feat but, on the whole, it was good in order to find our rhythm.”
#103 – Mark Miller (USA), 3rd place leg / 3rd place overall
"For my co-driver Ralph and me the crucial thing in the beginning was to get used to working together again. The leg featured more tasks for the navigator than for the drivers because two or three branch-offs were difficult to identify. In terms of driving, it was a moderate challenge as we were often running straight ahead at high speed.”
#104 – Nasser Al-Attiyah (Q), 1st place leg / 1st place overall
"Of course I’m really happy about our stage win. The leg strongly resembled a World Rally Championship round as we were mostly running on paved roads and gravel stretches. Our reward for today is being allowed to open the course on tomorrow’s leg – that’s why we’ll continue to act with due caution.”
Interim standings after Leg 02, Kazan (RUS) – Bougouruslan (RUS)
141.24 km/478.6 km SS 02/total
Pos., Team, Vehicle, Leg 02, Total time
1 Nasser Al-Attiyah/Timo Gottschalk (Q/D), Volkswagen Race Touareg 2, 1h 10m 15s, 1h 10m 15s
2 Carlos Sainz/Lucas Cruz (E/E), Volkswagen Race Touareg 2, 1h 13m 08s, + 2m 53s
3 Mark Miller/Ralph Pitchford (USA/ZA), Volkswagen Race Touareg 2, 1h 14m 35s, + 4m 20s
4 Giniel de Villiers/Dirk von Zitzewitz (ZA/D), Volkswagen Race Touareg 2, 1h 17m 18s, + 7m 03s
5 Christian Lavieille/Jean-Michel Polato (F/F), Nissan, 1h 19m 34s, + 9m 19s
6 Alexey Berkut/Konstantin Meshcheryakov (RUS/RUS), Mitsubishi, 1h 19m 59s, + 9m 44s
7 Bernard Errandonea/Jean-Pierre Garcin (F/F), SMG, 1h 20m 18s, + 10m 03s
8 Matthias Kahle/Thomas Schuenemann (D/D), Honda, 1h 21m 30s, + 11m 15s
9 Andrey Biryukov/Dmitri Kniga (RUS/BY), Mitsubishi, 1h 26m 54s, + 16m 39s
10 Ruslan Misikov/Konstantin Zhiltsov (RUS/RUS), Nissan, 1h 27m 20s, + 17m 05s
Coming up next…
The third day will confront the contenders with a leg split into two parts and the crossing Kazakhstan. The first section leads to Bougourouslan across 117 kilometres of a special stage featuring quick but extremely demanding stretches with many directional changes, jumps and up- and downhill sections. The second part across 114 kilometres is more harmonious and, including liaison stages, ends after a total of 581 kilometres in Uralsk, Kazakhstan.
