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Sunday, January 1st
Stage 1 : Mar del Plata – Santa Rosa de la Pampa
Road connection: 149 km – Special Stage: 57 km – Road connection: 614 km – Total: 820 km
Competitors of Dakar 2012 woke up very early. The first bike, Marc Coma, left the Parc Fermé in Mar del Plata at 5.45 a.m. this morning. Even if the stage to get to Santa Rosa de la Pampa was long – more than 800 kilometers – the special stage was only a 57 kilometers warm up next to the Atlantic Ocean. Beach, small dunes and fast tracks by the end, but with a speed control fixed to 90 km/h at the end of the dunes…
The Chilean Chaleco López takes the first stage win 14 seconds over Marc Coma. This symbolic victory is important for the rider who had an important fall in Tunisia and it took him three months to get back on his feet. Chaleco, guiding his new looked Aprilia, lighter and thinner, is one of the “outsiders” that could come to the fight of the discipline´s kings Marc Coma and Cyril Despres.
“I didn´t start very fast this morning, tells Chaleco at the SS finish, but I was focused because it is always easy to make mistakes in the first special stages. I also have to get used to the new GPS, smaller! Fortunately, the end of the special was faster.”
Argentinean rider, Javier Pizzolito, takes the third place in front of his own crowd that came to watch him on the special and American rider Quinn takes the 4th place in front of Polish Jakub Przygonski. Cyril Despres finishes 13th, 1´48´´ from López. “I am happy to finally be on the bike. I had to be cautious because there was the crowd, the dust, fesh-fesh…”
In quads, the victory goes to the Uruguayan La Fuente (Yamaha) in 40´13´´, who takes 33 seconds over Laskawiec (Yamaha) and 54 seconds on Marcos Patronelli (Yamaha).
After the special stage, competitors have still 600 kilometers to go before arriving to the bivouac located in Santa Rosa de la Pampa.
