Peterhansel wins again on stage eight

Peterhansel's victory moved him up to fourth in the overall standings, displacing his BMW team-mate Guerlain Chicherit.

"This was a very difficult stage and we had to drive so carefully on the rocks to avoid problems," said Peterhansel. "There was also a lot of navigation, difficult navigation as well.

"We also found the dunes at the end tricky to get past, especially since we didn't stop to let the tires down a bit. Since we had high tire pressure for the stones, we had to cross the dunes with 3 kilos, which isn't simple.

Carlos Sainz retained the overall lead for Volkswagen with second today, 45 seconds behind Peterhansel and 22 seconds ahead of Mark Miller.

Last year's winner Giniel de Villiers came home fourth, ahead of Nasser Al-Attiyah who kept his second place overall behind Sainz.

"Between Nasser [Al-Attiyah] and Carlos [Sainz] it's a real battle for 1st place," Peterhansel added. "We can't have a say in that fight because we're still too far behind. But we keep on picking up the specials and trying our best."

Tomorrow's stage will take the crews another 300km south from Copiapo to La Serena, the last stage in Chile's Atacama desert.

Stage eight:
Pos Driver                   Car                      Gap
 1. Stephane Peterhansel     BMW                 5h06m05s
 2. Carlos Sainz             Volkswagen              +45s
 3. Mark Miller              Volkswagen            +1m07s
 4. Giniel de Villiers       Volkswagen            +4m01s
 5. Nasser Al-Attiyah        Volkswagen            +4m17s
 6. Orlando Terranova        Mitsubishi            +7m15s
 7. Carlos Sousa             Mitsubishi           +21m10s
 8. Guerlain Chicherit       Bmw                  +22m04s
 9. Krzysztof Holowczyc      Nissan               +25m32s
10. Robby Gordon             Hummer               +36m59s

Overall standings:
Pos Driver                   Car                      Gap
 1. Carlos Sainz             Volkswagen         31h28m13s
 2. Nasser Al-Attiyah        Volkswagen            +14m35
 3. Mark Miller              Volkswagen            +22m28
 4. Stephane Peterhansel     BMW                +2h02m25s
 5. Guerlain Chicherit       BMW                +2h24m13s
 6. Krzysztof Holowczyc      Nissan             +2h45m45s
 7. Carlos Sousa             Mitsubishi         +3h29m23s
 8. Guilherme Spinelli       Mitsubishi         +4h04m12s
 9. Giniel de Villiers       Volkswagen         +4h34m49s
10. Robby Gordon             Hummer             +5h01m24s