Thursday, 5th January 2012

Carlos Sousa (7th overall) moves up for the third consecutive day
Carlos Sousa, driving the SUV Haval from Team Great Wall Motors, finished the fifth stage of the Dakar in the seventh position, climbing up to the same position overall, ten minutes ahead Nasser Al-Attiyah, winner of the race in 2011

In a stage that was not so difficult as most of the competitors expected it to be, especially due to the famous white dunes of Fiambal, Carlos Sousa stood out once more, getting the seventh best time in the stage and moving up to the same position overall, gaining almost ten minutes to the winner of the last edition, Nasser Al-Attiyah. The temperature finally dropped during this fifth and last stage in Argentinian territory. In fact, the Organization was forced to shorten the first 24 km of the stage expected to be 177 km long due to the heavy rain that fell the day before on this usually arid zone. I have already done this stage in 2010 and at that time it was all much more complicated. Fortunately, it wasnt so hot today as it had been on the last few days, and even crossing the dunes was calm. I decided to be cautious sometimes too cautious -, so that the engine didnt overheat, as it happened to Zhou Young on the first day, revealed the Portuguese driver when he arrived at Fiambal. This situation has been concerning the team, because we had the same problem when we were testing the car in Morocco. In short, it is something we have to deal with caution throughout the race. After coming to this position overall, it will be very difficult to do much better, considering the potential of the other teams and cars added Carlos Sousa, at the end of a day that he won more than 5 minutes to Giniel de Villiers (Toyota) and got even further from the drivers behind him.

After almost one third of the race, the Portuguese driver of Great Wall is now a little more than 40 minutes behind the leader Stphane Peterhansel and less than 10 minutes behind Leonid Novitskiy, who is sixth overall. Also moving up is his team mate Zhou Yong, who after the delay in the opening stage, has been improving his position and was 19th in todays stage. The next two stages of the Dakar are expected to cause more difficulties, especially on Saturday. Tomorrow after crossing the border more than 4.700 meters high, the drivers will face a tough stage to Copiap, in Chile, with a 247 km special stage on the brutal dryness of the Atacama Desert.

STAGE 5 Cl. Driver/Co-driver 1st Holowczyc/Fortin 2nd Gordon/Campbell 3rd Peterhansel/Cottret 4th Roma/Prin 5th Novitskiy/Schulz 6th Leal dos Santos/Fiuza 7th SOUSA/GARCIN () 19th ZHOU/MAIMON

Car MINI Hummer MINI MINI MINI MINI GREAT WALL GREAT WALL

Time/Dif. 2h10m51s + 1m01s + 3m52s + 7m47s + 8m18s + 9m19s + 8m21s + 35m42s

OVERALL AFTER STAGE 5 Cl. Driver/Co-driver 1st Peterhansel/Cottret 2nd Holowczyc/Fortin 3rd Roma/Prin 4th Gordon/Campbell 5th De Villiers/Von Zitzewitz 6th Novitskiy/Schulz 7th SOUSA/GARCIN () 39th ZHOU/MAIMON

Car MINI MINI MINI Hummer Toyota MINI GREAT WALL GREAT WALL

Time/Dif. 11h58m03s + 4m18s + 10m39s + 13m32s + 21m01s + 30m51s + 40m55s + 5h59m25s