Dakar: Ari's touch of magic

Dakar legend Ari Vatanen hit top form on the 14th stage of this year's event to win the 529km special from Kayes to Tambacounda by more than nine minutes

autosport.com staff Jan 14, 2005, 6:18 PM

The Nissan star has been plagued with reliability problems that have rendered him back in 38th position overall and more than 35 hours off of overall leader Stephane Peterhansel's Mitsubishi. But today the Finn drove spectacularly to completely dominate the stage.

Bruno Saby was second fastest for VW and remains fifth overall, while Euro MP Giniel de Villiers was third fastest in his Nissan Pickup.

Luc Alphand remains second overall ahead of Jutta Klienschmidt. The German VW driver needed assistance from team-mate Robbie Gordon to complete the stage however.

Nextel Cup star Gordon, who is another to have encountered various problems but was flying today, was forced to forsake his run and hand his steering system over to the stricken Klienschmidt, then wait for the VW service team to repair his machine.