Yamaha Netherlands Verhoeven Team’s Frans Verhoeven and Yamaha Factory Racing Rally Team Yamalube’s Olivier Pain skillfully maneuvered their way over the narrow paths of the penultimate stage and completed the day in 9th and 17th place.
The 12th stage of the 2015 Dakar covered 1024 kms to Rosario, 298 kms of which were against the clock. Pain’s results saw him preserve his 10th place overall, while Dutch Yamaha pilot Frans Verhoeven climbed up this evening to 15th place in the general standings.
French Yamaha rider Xavier de Soultrait also had a positive day. Despite battling illness he arrived at the bivouac in 13th place, a position he also maintains in the overall standings.
Christophe Declerck again made his mark in the quad category. The Yamaha Raptor 700 rider attacked the tracks to Rosario aggressively and left his closest competitor and fellow Yamaha rider Nelson Sanabria more than seven minutes behind him. Overall classification leader Rafal Sonik implemented the opposite tactic. He cautiously cruised to fourth place (at 10’05) and is well on his way to his first Dakar victory. He leads Jeremias González Ferioli by 2h52’17.
Tomorrow the riders will tackle the last stage of Dakar, with a fast special stage that leads them back to where it all started. After completing 9295 km in Argentina, Chile and Bolivia the riders will have come full circle and arrive at the podium at the Tecnópolis Buenos Aires to celebrate their achievements.
Olivier Pain
17th / 15’29, overall 10th / 3h04’21
“The special was quite tricky and slippery in places and narrow too. You really had to take care and that made for quite a stressful stage. With just one day left to race and a big time gap both in front of me and behind me, the priority is to protect my tenth place overall and not make any mistakes. Strange as it may seem, it is a situation that is almost more mentally exhausting than last year when I was fighting for third place. Last year I was so focused that time seemed to go really quickly. Today at the end we had a really long liaison of almost 500 kilometres, most of it on autoroute and, exceptionally, the organisers let us put our bikes in our vans.”
Xavier De Soultrait
13th / 13’13, overall 13th / 4h17’35
“I had a great day today. I didn’t have the intention of attacking but I started to have fun on the bike and came up behind fellow Dutchman Vogels. I got past him just after the refuelling and then pulled out another two minutes on him by the finish. Finally, on the penultimate day of the rally, I’m riding like I used to. Clearly, up until now, I have been paying the price of not having raced all year.”
Frans Verhoeven
9th / 10’51, overall 15th / 5h12’16
“I had a great day today. I didn’t have the intention of attacking but I started to have fun on the bike and came up behind fellow Dutchman Vogels. I got past him just after the refuelling and then pulled out another two minutes on him by the finish. Finally, on the penultimate day of the rally, I’m riding like I used to. Clearly, up until now, I have been paying the price of not having raced all year.”
You can follow Yamaha’s progress in the Dakar Rally HERE .
Dakar Rally 2015 Stage 12: Termas Rio Hondo to Rosario
1. Toby Price, AUS (KTM) 03:19:04
2. Joan Barreda Bort, ESP (Honda) 03:20:59
3. Paulo Gonçalves, PRT (Honda) 03:22:06
4. Ivan Jakes, SVK (KTM) 03:22:12
5. Stefan Svitko, SVK (KTM) 03:24:05
6. Marc Coma, ESP (KTM) 03:25:29
7. Helder Rodrigues, PRT (Honda) 03:27:44
8. Pablo Quintanilla, CHL (KTM) 03:29:11
9. Frans Verhoeven, NLD (Yamaha) 03:29:55
10. Laia Sanz Pla-Giribert, ESP (Honda) 03:31:46
11. Javier Pizzolito, ARG (Honda) 03:32:00
12. Hans Vogels, NLD (KTM) 03:32:06
13. Xavier De Soultrait, FRA (Yamaha) 03:32:17
14. Jean De Azevedo, BRA (Honda) 03:33:44
15. David Casteu, FRA (KTM) 03:33:47
17. Olivier Pain, FRA (Yamaha) 03:34:33
18. Txomin Arana Cobeaga, ESP (Yamaha) 03:34:54
Dakar Rally 2015: Overall Ranking
1. Marc Coma, ESP (KTM) 45:08:32
2. Paulo Gonçalves, PRT (Honda) 45:26:21
3. Toby Price, AUS (KTM) 45:33:50
4. Pablo Quintanilla, CHL (KTM) 45:45:29
5. Stefan Svitko, SVK (KTM) 45:55:15
6. Ruben Faria, PRT (KTM) 46:59:11
7. David Casteu, FRA (KTM) 47:03:41
8. Laia Sanz Pla-Giribert, ESP (Honda) 47:28:09
9. Ivan Jakes, SVK (KTM) 47:30:01
10. Olivier Pain, FRA (Yamaha) 48:12:53
11. Helder Rodrigues, PRT (Honda) 48:36:26
12. Hans Vogels, NLD (KTM) 48:39:57
13. Xavier De Soultrait, FRA (Yamaha) 49:26:07
14. Paolo Ceci, ITA (KTM) 50:00:38
15. Frans Verhoeven, NLD (Yamaha) 50:20:48
16. Txomin Arana Cobeaga, ESP (Yamaha) 50:22:22
