Dakar Rally – Stage Six

The sixth stage of the Dakar was won by Sherco’s Alain Duclos – eight years after his first stage victory.

His triumph had been in the making for some time. Since the start of the Dakar, Alain Duclos has been able to measure the competitiveness of his Sherco 450, which has visibly accomplished enormous progress compared to last year.

“It was a good performance since I gained 10 minutes back on Jordi Villadoms. Today, it was my type of terrain. We’ve got over the worst over the last few days and the rest day has arrived at the right time – it couldn’t be better timed,” said a pleased Duclos.

The ninth rider to start this morning, the Sherco rider went on all-out attack, overtaking five riders and recording the best time at the end of the stage.

With race lead Marc Coma keeping within reach of Duclos, he ended the stage as runner-up while Yamaha’s Michael Metge delivered his best result of the rally so far with fourth.

Ending the stage in fourth and only two minutes 22 seconds behind Duclos, Joan Barreda reaches the rest day on the second step of the provisional podium. He’s  ready to take advantage of the slightest error by Coma – however that comes on the condition that Coma’s mistake will cost him 42 minutes.

Aside from Duclos winning the biggest news was the retirement of Chaleco Lopez. At 211 km Lopez crashed – annihilating his bike as well as his dreams of glory in Valparaiso.

Laia Sanz, who picked up a one-hour penalty for missing a waypoint, today made up for the places dropped in the overall standings and is now back in 20th place.

Saturday is a welcomed rest day within the Dakar camp before competitors make tracks towards the salt lakes of Bolivia on what will be another marathon stage.

Results – Dakar Rally, Stage 6

Tucuman to Salta – 64 km liaison, 400 km special

1, Alain Duclos, FRA, Sherco at 4 hours 21.34



2, Marc Coma, ESP, KTM at 1 minute 15 


3, Michael Metge FRA, Yamaha at 1.49


4, Joan Barreda, ESP, Honda at 2.22


5, Cyril Despres, FRA, Yamaha at 2.55


Overall after Stage 6


1, Coma,  23 hours 08.00


2, Barreda at 42.17


3, Duclos at 1:00;58


4, Villadoms at 1:08.09


5, Esquerre, CHI, Speedbrain at 1:33.28