COMMUNIQUE 9 9 January 2001 El Ghallaouiya - El Ghallaouiya Liaison 0 km - SS 518 km - Total 518 km

Mitsubishi Pajero / Montero Team Mitsubishi Germany J. Kleinschmidt / A. Schulz

German lady driver Jutta Kleinschmidt took her seventh ever stage win on the Dakar today on the 518 km ninth leg of the 2001 event driving a Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero. Her victory on the flat out blast across the open desert in Mauritania adds to her two wins in 1997, one in 1998, two in 1999 and one last year. With no land marks other than the mountainous dunes and passes, navigation played a major role in today’s leg which looped from El Ghallaouiya and back with four passage controls in the Sahara Desert. Kleinschmidt’s navigator, fellow German Andreas Schulz, made a clever judgement of the route, and with their reliable Mitsubishi, the pair clinched the stage win by just 25 seconds from irate buggy driver Jean-Louis Schlesser. The win moves Jutta up to fourth in the overall rankings Mitsubishi Pajero / Montero Evolution Team Nisseki Mitsubishi Ralliart H. Masuoka / P. Maimon Said Kleinschmidt: "I drove side-by-side with Carlos Sousa all the way to the third checkpoint, at which point we took different route options. I reckon I took the best one! The route was fast, but you had to be careful of the camel grass". Camel grass is one of the more persistent hazards of desert rallying. The desert floor is often peppered with clumps of dry grass which sit on top of hard mounds of sand - resembling a camel’s hump. Unfortunately, French pair Jean-Pierre Fontenay and Gilles Picard found a particularly sharp clump 275 km into the stage and hit it hard at over 120 km/h in their Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero. "It stopped us dead in our tracks and flipped the car onto its side", reported a shocked Fontenay. "Sousa stopped to help us get going again, but we finished the stage without power steering or a clutch". Despite the tough break, Fontenay only dropped from second overall to third, and is still close to rally leader Jose Maria Servia, whose buggy is just 18m 58s in front. Splitting the leader and Fontenay, Japanese driver Hiroshi Masuoka now lies in second in his Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero, co-driven by Pascal Maimon who is a sailing enthusiast. His navigational skills were much in demand today, as Masuoka commented: "It’s more like a yacht race than a rally. You make your own route, just making sure you visit the passage controls. It was bumpy and we drove very fast, but some of the dunes were like steep mountains. It was not so easy, but very enjoyable. I like this kind of stage. The car was perfect and Pascal’s navigation was excellent, and the mechanics and technicians have obviously done a good job with the car, because we had no problems whatsoever". Indeed, Masuoka’s only problem was that in the rush to finish third fastest, he had no time to stop for a "call of nature!" Masuoka finished just one second behind Schlesser and 26 down on Kleinschmidt. He is now only 9m 54s behind the leader Servia. Mitsubishi Pajero / Montero Team Hewlett Packard Ralliart J.P. Fontenay / G. Picard Portuguese ace Carlos Sousa had two major parts to play in all this drama in his Mitsubishi L200. After lending moral support to Kleinschmidt during the first half of the leg, he then stopped to help the stricken Fontenay get his car going again. He reported: "We ran with Kleinschmidt for a while and then stopped to help Jean-Pierre, but after that we chose the wrong route to get a good time, and then we were delayed with a puncture just 10 km from the end. But it was not so bad". Sousa was sixth fastest on the leg and now lies fifth overall. Not so fortunate was Kenjiro Shinozuka of Japan, co-driven by Fred Gallagher of Great Britain. Their Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero developed an electrical fault again today, and Shinozuka was forced to break for home during the stage, missing two passage controls in the process, in order to get back to the camp to get the car repaired. As a consequence, he was awarded 10 hours in penalties for each check point missed, putting him a further 20 hours behind the leaders. All hopes of repeating his previous Dakar victory have now faded completely. Tomorrow sees the final leg before the traditional half-way rest day. According to the same tradition, this leg is usually one of the toughest of the event! Most of the route again takes place off-road, over dunes and vast seas of rippled sand. The highlights of the 440 km leg are the crossing of the Erg El Beyyed and the descent of the Aghreijt Pass on the way to Atar.

Leg 9 - El Ghallaouiya - El Ghallaouiya SS 9 - 518.00 km - Tuesday 9 January

Times on SS 9 1 J.KLEINSCHMIDT A.SCHULZ MITSUBISHI PAJERO / MONTERO 5.22.42.0 2 J.L.SCHLESSER H.MAGNE SCHLESSER BUGGY RENAULT MEGANE 5.23.07.0 +25.0 3 H.MASUOKA P.MAIMON MITSUBISHI PAJERO / MONTERO 5.23.08.0 +26.0 4 J.M.SERVIA J.M.LURQUIN SCHLESSER BUGGY RENAULT MEGANE 5.29.13.0 +6.31.0 5 T.DELAVERGNE J.DUBOIS NISSAN TERRANO 5.35.30.0 +12.48.0 6 C.SOUSA J.M.POLATO MITSUBISHI L200 STRAKAR 5.36.23.0 +13.41.0 7 J.P.FONTENAY G.PICARD MITSUBISHI PAJERO / MONTERO 5.36.41.0 +13.59.0 8 G.DE MEVIUS A.GUEHENNEC NISSAN TERRANO 5.42.37.0 +19.55.0 9 S.HENRARD J.M.MARTINEZ VOLKSWAGEN BUGGY 5.43.57.0 +21.15.0 10 H.PESCAROLO S.DE LIEDEKERKE NISSAN TERRANO 6.17.58.0 +55.16.0 11 J.RIVIERE P.FOURTICQ NISSAN 6.21.25.0 +58.43.0 12 S.PETERHANSEL W.ALCARAZ NISSAN TERRANO 6.23.47.0 +1.01.05.0 13 J.F.GUINOT M.KROISS NISSAN TERRANO 6.25.13.0 +1.02.31.0 14 K.KOLBERG B.CATTARELLI MITSUBISHI PAJERO / MONTERO 6.30.06.0 +1.07.24.0 16 N.BARKAT E.BARKAT MITSUBISHI PAJERO / MONTERO 6.45.17.0 +1.22.35.0 19 M.PRIETO A.VELHINHO MITSUBISHI PAJERO / MONTERO 7.04.10.0 +1.41.28.0 27 B.SABY T.DELLI ZOTI FORD RANGER PROTRUCK 7.45.41.0 +2.22.59.0 36 G.MARCY J.P.COTTRET TOYOTA 8.20.03.0 +2.57.21.0 71 K.SHINOZUKA F.GALLAGHER MITSUBISHI PAJERO / MONTERO 31.30.00.0 +26.07.18.0

Overall after SS 9 1 J.M.SERVIA J.M.LURQUIN SCHLESSER BUGGY RENAULT MEGANE 23.35.58.0 2 H.MASUOKA P.MAIMON MITSUBISHI PAJERO / MONTERO 23.45.52.0 +9.54.0 3 J.P.FONTENAY G.PICARD MITSUBISHI PAJERO / MONTERO 23.54.56.0 +18.58.0 4 J.KLEINSCHMIDT A.SCHULZ MITSUBISHI PAJERO / MONTERO 24.16.03.0 +40.05.0 5 C.SOUSA J.M.POLATO MITSUBISHI L200 STRAKAR 24.27.29.0 +51.31.0 6 J.L.SCHLESSER H.MAGNE SCHLESSER BUGGY RENAULT MEGANE 24.31.14.0 +55.16.0 7 T.DELAVERGNE J.DUBOIS NISSAN TERRANO 25.19.41.0 +1.43.43.0 8 S.HENRARD J.M.MARTINEZ VOLKSWAGEN BUGGY 26.15.22.0 +2.39.24.0 9 G.DE MEVIUS A.GUEHENNEC NISSAN TERRANO 26.32.22.0 +2.56.24.0 10 N.BARKAT E.BARKAT MITSUBISHI PAJERO / MONTERO 27.12.50.0 +3.36.52.0 11 B.SABY T.DELLI ZOTI FORD RANGER PROTRUCK 27.34.50.0 +3.58.52.0 12 S.PETERHANSEL W.ALCARAZ NISSAN TERRANO 27.57.09.0 +4.21.11.0 13 K.KOLBERG B.CATTARELLI MITSUBISHI PAJERO / MONTERO 28.02.56.0 +4.26.58.0 14 G.MARCY J.P.COTTRET TOYOTA 28.35.50.0 +4.59.52.0 16 J.F.GUINOT M.KROISS NISSAN TERRANO 28.56.02.0 +5.20.04.0 19 M.PRIETO A.VELHINHO MITSUBISHI PAJERO / MONTERO 29.33.02.0 +5.57.04.0 22 H.PESCAROLO S.DE LIEDEKERKE NISSAN TERRANO 30.38.26.0 +7.02.28.0 58 J.RIVIERE P.FOURTICQ NISSAN 44.32.44.0 +20.56.46.0 67 K.SHINOZUKA F.GALLAGHER MITSUBISHI PAJERO / MONTERO 52.03.46.0 +28.27.48.0