Experienced Armin Schwarz wins ahead of youngster Lars Kern - Team France extends lead in overall standings to just under two hours
11th stage of 14
Liaison 1: 77 km
Special stage: 280 km
Liaison 2: 1 km
The 11th leg of the Transsyberia Rally 2008 powered by Sony Ericsson led for 358 km, from Darvi to Altai. Blistering heat prevailed at the start. After they were fast yesterday, but missed a checkpoint and therefore lost the victory of the day, everything was right today for Armin Schwarz and Andreas Schulz. For the fourth time, Team Germany 1 posted the fastest time at a special stage. After 3:42:44 hours and a lead of 4:06 minutes, they were confirmed as the winners. With this, Schwarz/Schulz move into second place in the overall standings.
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2008 TransSyberia Rally Standings 7-22-08
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Team Germany 3 is also back on the road to success. Just as during the opening stage eleven days ago, they made second place. Pilot Lars Kern especially liked the properties of the stretch. “Just the way I like it. A fast stretch where you could accelerate, but at the same time you had to maneuver. Our car ran excellently. During the last part, I still didn’t think I could keep up with Armin. It worked out though! And so we reached the destination at the same time.“ With victory the radiance returned to the face of the 20-year old rally driver. In the overall standings Lars Kern and Daniel van Kan are in 6th place.
Several minutes went by, before the leaders in the overall standings, Team France crossed the finish line in third place, at an altitude of 6562 feet.(+ 00:16:52 minutes). Francois Borsotto in the passeneger seat looked worried. “It was exhausting! We had a big problem: The engine wasn’t performing anymore. We were crawling, not driving, on the last 20 km. Fortunately the route led downhill.“ Contrary to expectations, they extended their lead on Team Portugal, who’d been in second place before this stage, to over two hours. The Portuguese Pedro Gameiro and Pedro Figueiredo had to battle a serious problem from kilometer 100 on: the rear wheel suspension broke. With a lag time of 2:01 hours, they finished in 7th place. That also cost them the second place in the overall standings, where they’re now in third.
Pau Soler and Laia Peinado from Spain crossed the finish line in fourth place with a lag time of 23:41 minutes and in inclined position due to a damaged rear wheel suspension. The Russian team with Denis Levytov and Sergey Talantsev were fifth, the sixth place was scored by Team Suzuki/Spox.com. Andreas Kramer and Kurt Ettenberger have to however replace the torn upper transverse control arm.
Team USA overlooked a 6.6 feet deep dried-up trench and got their Porsche stuck in it. Since Ryan Millen and Colin Godby couldn’t have freed themselves from this situation alone, they received the necessary help from the Russians Fedor Fedorov and Mikhail Bardashow (Team Inteko). Due to this incident, the Americans lost a lot of time in the overall standings and slipped from the seventh to twelfth place. Adel Abdulla from Qatar and Norbert Lutteri from Italy lost a huge amount of time because of a defect to their Porsche Cayenne S Transsyberia. They received ten penalty hours fort his.
Problems also appeared on the agenda of the independents. Team JoeVito (Panos Meyer/Birger Veit) had started the leg, but not the special stage. A broken drive shaft forced them to an emergency repair. They arrived at the camp in Altai and have been able to get their Landrover going again in the meantime, thanks to Daniel van Kan’s heavy labor. That’s also the crew’s hope of the Danner Racing Team, which had to be towed to the camp, 35 km before the finish, due to a broken air-conditioning compressor.
Drivers, mechanics and service crews will be repairing the rally cars into the night. Tomorrow the longest special stage of this year’s Transsyberia Rally powered by Sony Ericsson will take place. The route will lead over 400 km through the Gobi Desert, with river crossings and up to the high plateau of the Bayankhongor in an altitude of 6562 feet. The stage’s destination will be reached after a total of 519 kilometers.
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