Dakar Rally Stage 3 - San Miguel de Tucuman to San Salvador de Jujuy
And the battle has begun. Marc Coma nearly caught up to his KTM rival Cyril Despres today with a fantastic stage 3 win. Coma cut Despres' lead down to just 14 seconds today, finishing the stage in 4 hours, 18 minutes, and 55 seconds.
"That was a really authentic Dakar day," Coma said. "The first part with lots of navigation, then more riding on the rest. I’m happy with where I am. I took advantage of a little navigation mistake by Cyril Despres. Of course it’s important to win a special, but my aim is to win the rally.”
Coma cut more than two minutes off of Despres' lead, as the two legendary Dakar riders added a little more space between them and the rest of the pack.
"Marc Coma caught up with me very quickly," Despres said. "There were a lot of riders at the start of the special. I was very careful during the first 10 kilometres and then after 11 km I got it completely wrong. I didn’t lose two hours, but several precious minutes. In the end, I limited the damage, because I finished 20 seconds behind Marc. He must have gain 2 minutes 20 seconds on me. It’s not huge amount of time, but I would’ve liked to have kept it for myself.”
Ruben Faria, who finished fifth during today's stage, is now in third place overall, 9 minutes and 38 seconds behind Despres.
