Communique 16 - Dakhla, Egypt
Friday 21 January 2000
Leg 15 Dakhla (Egypt) - Dakhla
Total distance: 606km - Special Stage: 352km

Mitsubishis Score First, Second and Third on Stage,
but Schlesser Still Leads Dakar 2000

Driving their Team Mitsubishi France Pajero/Montero, popular French pair Jean-Pierre Fontenay and Gilles Picard have not given up hope of winning this year’s Paris-Cairo-Dakar Rally after winning today’s stage at Dakhla. However, they’re still in third place, less than 30 minutes down on rally leader Jean-Louis Schlesser (Buggy) and a quarter of an hour behind second-placed driver Stephane Peterhansel in his Mitsubishi-powered Mega Desert.

Today’s stage was slightly more technical than recent high-speed legs, crossing massive sand dunes in the Western Desert, with a run through vast white marble valleys and a spectacular finale as the competitors descended the sand cascade, over a cliff, 20km from the finish of the stage. Amazingly, after 352 km of such varied terrain, both Peterhansel and Schlesser scored exactly the same time!

The Mitsubishis were easily the fastest when the going suddenly got tougher, with Hiroshi Masuoka of Japan and Andreas Schulz of Germany taking second in their Pajero/Montero, and Team Mitsubishi Germany’s all-girl crew, Jutta Kleinschmidt and Tina Thorner, scoring third in the similar machine.

But Fontenay was still disappointed that the stage was not even more technical; with 720km to go, half an hour is still a lot of time to make up on the leaders and he had hoped to make a bigger impact today. He said: "We were hoping for a more difficult stage, but it was not to be. We just haven’t got the top speed for these fast stages".

Fontenay also had his share of problems, however, revealing that he did have a puncture, but used his remote tyre pressure regulating system to keep the tyre inflated so that he did not have to stop and change it. Nevertheless, he still took pleasure in scoring his second stage win of this year’s Dakar, equaling the number of wins scored by rally leader Schlesser, Sousa and Peterhansel.

Masuoka, however, enjoyed the stage, adding: "There was a lot of variety today; technical, twisty sections, sand dunes and some high speed desert sections. It was good fun to drive it and we had no technical problems".

Kleinschmidt also avoided technical and tyre trouble, a welcome change to the start of the rally when she had a series of punctures that prevented her from challenging for the lead.

Tomorrow sees the last of the "real" special stages of the event with 416km of hard driving in an overall route of 722km. As Schlesser himself said, "It’s not over yet", and both Peterhansel and Fontenay will be charging hard to the finish to try and grab the lead once more.

POSITIONS ON STAGE 15

OVERALL CLASSIFICATION AFTER LEG 15