With a 1-2-3-4 stage win on the sixth leg Volkswagen bids farewell to the first half of the Dakar Rally for the well-deserved rest day on Saturday. At the mid-point of the world’s toughest rally the Wolfsburg-based squad maintains the top two positions overall with the Race Touareg 3.

But the competition is staying on the heels of the two leading Volkswagen factory drivers, Carlos Sainz/Lucas Cruz (E/E) and Nasser Al-Attiyah/Timo Gottschalk (Q/D), because a battle between three rivals again dominated the action at the front of the field. X-raid BMW driver Stéphane Peterhansel had been leading part of the sixth leg from Iquique to Arica before dropping back due to punctures. The two quickest Volkswagen duos subsequently fought a fair duel on the 456-kilometre stage, which has been the second-longest one so far. Like yesterday, the decision was only made on the final kilometres of the special in the barren Atacama Desert in which so-called fesh fesh – a powder-like sand that makes up the ground – made the conditions considerably more difficult.

After Peterhansel’s time loss Sainz took the lead. But then Al-Attiyah on the final 100 kilometres temporarily converted a gap of 1m 27s into a 14-second advantage. Yet in the end Sainz secured his fifth stage win with the Race Touareg. After 4h 53m of driving time the Spaniard reached the finish a mere nine seconds in front of his team-mate Al-Attiyah who thus again bumped Stéphane Peterhansel from second place overall.

Giniel de Villiers/Dirk von Zitzewitz (ZA/D) finished the stage in third place. The 2009 "Dakar” winners continue to rank in fourth place overall. Mark Miller/Ralph Pitchford (USA/ZA) completed the 1-2-3-4 stage result of the TDI-powered Race Touareg, moving up to sixth place in the overall standings.

Number of the day
With the Race Touareg vehicles of Carlos Sainz, Giniel de Villiers and company Volkswagen, before the rest day, continues to have all four cars in the race that were entered. Before reaching Buenos Aires they could be logging about 20,000 additional kilometres of special stages. Since 2004 all Race Touareg cars combined have completed 325,537.5 kilometres of special stages, and 111,147 of them at the Dakar Rally. The addition of the total times of all finishes reveals that the drivers and co-drivers of the Wolfsburg-based brand were out for 86 days, one hour, 14 minutes and twelve seconds, not counting the times of the current "Dakar”.


Coming up next …
Saturday, 08 January: As most of the Dakar Rally’s participants are extremely busy on that day the term "rest day” is misleading. The drivers and co-drivers of the top teams take on the onrush of the media while the mechanics experience their hardest "Dakar” workday. Before the second half of the rally nothing is left to chance and the vehicles are subjected to the most extensive maintenance during the gruelling desert tour.

Sunday, 09 January: The seventh leg is one of the longest on the 2011 Dakar Rally calendar. The route leads along the coastal Cordillera with its numerous salt lakes. Foothills of the Atacama Desert extend all the way to Antofagasta – the destination of this stage. The challenges are manifold and the co-drivers can again shine with their skills and compass navigation.

Quotes after leg 6 http://www.volkswagen-motorsport.com...st=538&id=4229

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