2017 Dakar Rally gets under way with 454 km Stage 1: Asunción

Media Information

2017 Dakar Rally

02 January 2017

2017 Dakar Rally gets under way with 454 km Stage 1:
Asunción
–
Resistencia

Two MINI John Cooper Works Rally take top ten positions
Al-Rajhi completes Stage 1 in seventh place; Hirvonen in ninth
All eight members of the MINI Family complete Stage 1

Munich. The 2017 Dakar Rally (2-14^th January)
finally got underway with Stage 1, Asunción, the capital city of
Paraguay, to Resistencia, Argentina. The 454 km route included a 39
km Special Stage that sets the starting order for tomorrow’s
(03-01-2017) Stage 2.

Following an evening of pre-race celebrations that saw thousands of
Dakar rally fans line the streets of Asunción before dancing the night
away, the official race start to the 39^th edition of Dakar
has finally arrived. Eight crews make up the MINI Family for this
year’s Dakar and all eight got away from the start line to begin what
is likely to be the toughest Dakar for some years.

All eight crews of the MINI Family successfully started and completed
Stage 1. The resulting finish order was always going to produce
extremely close racing with everyone pushing hard to get good a
result. This indeed proved to be the case.

X-raid Team’s Yazeed Al-Rajhi (KSA) and co-driver Timo Gottschalk
(GER) – in the new MINI John Cooper Works Rally #306 – finished
seventh and the highest placed member of the MINI Family.

Al-Rajhi: “At this stage all is ok. We try to do our best and not
make any mistakes. The stage was very rough, not easy, difficult and
hard for the car also. But we finish with no problem.”

Just 14 seconds separated Al-Rajhi from fellow X-raid Team duo of
Mikko Hirvonen (FIN) and Michel Périn (FRA) in the second of the three
new MINI John Cooper Works Rally cars to debut at the 2017 Dakar
Rally. Hirvonen’s experience from his first Dakar last year stood him
in good stead because he finished also inside the top ten in ninth position.

Talking about his first race in the MINI John Cooper Works Rally,
Hirvonen said: “The first day is now behind us. Now we can start the
proper racing tomorrow. No dramas today, really. I’m quite happy with
how today went and how the car is working. The stage was pretty fast;
one or two surprising bumps and holes here and there but otherwise all
is ok.”

Despite little testing time in the seat of a MINI John Cooper Works
Rally (#308), Orlando Terranova (ARG) and co-driver Andreas Schulz
(GER), also of X-raid Team, showed true competitive spirit by taking
11^th place – only four seconds behind Hirvonen.

“It was nice,” said Terranova. “The car is perfect and fantastic for
Dakar. We don’t make notes; we drive like cross-country. The race is
on and we took a little risk – we wanted to be in the top ten to have
a good start. It was difficult without notes because the pace was very fast.”

Jakub Przygonski (POL) and Tom Colsoul (BEL) was the first of the
MINI Family to complete Stage 1 at the controls of an iconic MINI ALL4
Racing (#316). The ORLEN Team duo finished in the top fifteen with a
solid 14^thplace.

The remainder of the X-raid Team crews also made it to the end of
Stage 1 ready to begin their attack and chip away at the leading
positions over the course of the next 12 days.

Three more MINI ALL4 Racing of X-raid Team finished in the early top
30. Last minute entries to Dakar, Sylvio deBarros (BR) and Rafael
Capoani (BR) completed in 21^st place in their MINI ALL4
Racing (#339). Following up in close formation were the MINI Family
crews of Boris Garafulic (CHL) / Filipe Palmeiro (POR) and Mohamed Abu
Issa (QAT) / Xavier Panseri (FRA) in 22^nd and
23^rd respectively. Stephan Schott (GER) and Paulo Fiuza
(POR) ended Stage 1 in 31^st place, just 5min 18 secs behind
the leading car!

Tomorrow’s (03-01-2017) Stage 2 starts in Resistencia, Argentina and
completes in San Miguel de Tucumán, a total distance of 803 km.

2017 Dakar Rally: Stage 1,
Asunción
–
Resistencia
, 454 km. MINI Family standings.

Position

Driver

Co-driver

Team

Time

Yazeed Al-Rajhi
(KSA)

Timo Gottschalk
(GER)

306

X-raid Team