Chilean Francisco Lopez Contardo rode his V-twin powered Aprilia RXV450 to victory on home turf yesterday, during stage 5 of the 2010 Dakar Rally and now finds himself second overall behind unrelenting Frenchman Cyril Despres, after frontrunner David Casteau’s 2010 bid ended disasterously, when a hard crash and resulting leg injury forced his withdrawal. Bad luck also hit 2009 champion KTM rider, Marc Coma once again. After leading the stage by six minutes and chipping away at his time penalty deficit, Coma lost his rear tire and fell 40 minutes back, leaving him an insurmountable 1:16:55 overall behind Despres.
Meanwhile Canadian Patrick Trahan had another solid day aboard his Honda, finishing the stage in 53rd position and remaining 76th overall.
“This stage was real Dakar!,” wrote Trahan on his blog. “Tough as I love it! 500km special stage … I breath dust for 500km, that’s 8 hours on my motorcycle. Without break from dust because most of the time we had a headwind so dust does not leave the track! When a race car passes you, visibility is at 0.5m then you must stop! I drove molo, with almost no fault in the technical parts. I rode all the time and very carefully!
2010 Dakar Rally Stage 5 Results
1. LOPEZ CONTARDO (CHL) APRILIA 05:52:40
2. DESPRES (FRA) KTM 05:54:10 00:01:30
3. FRETIGNE (FRA) YAMAHA 06:05:53 00:13:13
4. FARIA (PRT) KTM 06:07:49 00:15:09
5. ULLEVALSETER (NOR) KTM 06:11:04 00:18:24
6. RODRIGUES (PRT) YAMAHA 06:14:26 00:21:46
7. GONÇALVES (PRT) BMW 06:17:04 00:24:24
8. DUCLOS (FRA) KTM 06:17:24 00:24:44
9. PRZYGONSKI (POL) KTM 06:17:25 00:24:45
10. PAIN (FRA) YAMAHA 06:19:53 00:27:13
2010 Dakar Rally Overall Standings
1. DESPRES (FRA) KTM 16:38:26 00:00:00
2. LOPEZ CONTARDO (CHL) APRILIA 17:16:03 00:37:37
3. RODRIGUES (PRT) YAMAHA 17:22:27 00:44:01
4. DUCLOS (FRA) KTM 17:40:00 01:01:34
5. ULLEVALSETER (NOR) KTM 17:46:33 01:08:07
6. STREET (USA) KTM 17:51:12 01:12:46
7. COMA (ESP) KTM 17:55:21 01:16:55
8. GONÇALVES (PRT) BMW 17:58:18 01:19:52
9. MANCA (ITA) KTM 18:05:05 01:26:39
10. PEDRERO GARCIA (ESP) KTM 18:19:51 01:41:25
