Marc Coma is just a few days away from claiming his third Dakar Rally title. Coma, who has been roughly 10 minutes ahead of his biggest opponent, Cyril Despres, for the majority of the 2011 Dakar Rally, was finally able to expand the gap and is now 18 minutes ahead of his KTM rival.
Despres started the 10th stage of the 2011 Dakar Rally ahead of Coma, and rushed ahead in an attempt to cut into Coma's lead. But Despres made a few navigation mistakes that made today's stage much more difficult than it should have been.
“I made a first big mistake after 120 km whilst I was riding well. I read 17 instead of 117 on the navigation and I ended up in the rocks with Verhoeven. We already lost lots of time there, but then in the last few kilometres I made another mistake, turned round and fell into a mud hole. It was impossible to get back out, it took me ten minutes in all. I though I was going to lose even more time. It's a bad day, but that's rally raids for you, some days are good, some are bad”.
With Despres struggling to find a decent path to Chilecito, Argentina, Coma was able to capitalize on his mistakes. Coma captured his third stage victory of the year today, and added 9 minutes and 56 seconds to his lead.
