Dakar 2014 - Official Event Coverage - thank you all, lurkers and posters!!!

With a time of 57'10" for 81 Kilometres, his lightning pace means that Marc Coma is still leader, 1'37" ahead of Helder Rodrigues and 2'40" in front of Jordi Viladoms.

Coma can turn it up when he needs to.

Very strange, as WP1=CP1 and they're missing from the manual CP list as well.

From that rough translation it sound like Crush syndrome?
Do you know how he fell?

Poor them. Terrible luck this past week/month.

(quote not working, again)
Happy B-Day, Pete, you ol' phart!

Where's Chaleco? Problems with iritrack?

WP3 is hot, Coma thru first.
MC seems content opening trail today.

Yep. And with the shortened stages to come the race control will be much more predictable. Coma was my first pick at a victory before the start, but I wouldn't bet any money at the time. Now, I would be more comfortable risking a few Euros. Are there sites like Bet and Win taking bets on Dakar?

Turn out the fire with rear tire shovling sand over the burning bike, ofcourse the stadium of the bike burning is important.

There was a ''danger 3'' (!!!) marked in the roadbook were he crashed... Other than that I still have no ideal if what is going on. Some posts on FB say that Oriol will start today while others say that he was disqualified yesterday. I cannot reach the Team Leader on the phone since yesterday...

I don't think so... WP1 is also CP1 (manual tracking) so maybe he didn't start for some reason? Hope it's not the case...

WP1 is a manual CP. Chaleco and van Niekerk should show up here and on Mischa's tracker.

I don´t think so... I search for it and found nothing.

That´s good because i´ll put my money on 1-Despres, 2-Coma, 3-GonKalves...

Mikael Metge IS NOT waiting for Cyril Despres. He is phisically in front of him on the track. I think this is a good indication that Yamaha is not seeing a podium as possible but is going after Stage Victories.

In good old KTM times Ruben would have to wait for The Boss even if he was 1st overall.

(44) 092 - MIKE JOHNSON (USA) HONDA +00:13:35 at WP1

At WP2 it's

Coma
Duclos
Rodrigues
Metge

who started 11th, in front of his boss Despres in 17th. So he has been relieved of his duties as water carrier?

EDIT: 205'd by Carlosh.

From Team Rally Suzuki

It seems that all Team Suzuki riders are out except Mario Patrao....

Is anyone able to find out if Paul Jay #99 left on his start time this morning please? GO PAUL!!!!

WP3 was hot, seems frozen now.

(1) 002 - MARC COMA (ESP) KTM 07:27:38 (1) 07:57:10 (1) 08:27:42 (1)
- (2) 004 - JORDI VILADOMS (ESP) KTM 07:31:18 (2) 08:01:50 (2) 08:33:13 (2)
- (3) 007 - HELDER RODRIGUES (PRT) HONDA 07:32:29 (3) 08:02:47 (3) 08:33:58

I see Chaleco and Riaan both still at DSS. Since WP1 is also CP1 we should have seen something there, if they passed through. I have no clue what's going on.

<table id="resplive" width="100%"><tbody><tr class="even track" title="030 RIAAN VAN NIEKERK (ZAF) on DSS at +00:00:00 (4)"><td>-</td><td>(4)</td><td>030 - RIAAN VAN NIEKERK (ZAF)
</td><td>KTM 450 RALLY REPLICA
</td><td>07:06:00</td><td>(4)</td><td class="wait">-</td><td class="wait">(-)</td><td class="wait">-</td><td class="wait">(-)</td><td class="wait">-</td><td class="wait">(-)</td></tr><tr class="odd" title="005 FRANCISCO LOPEZ CONTARDO (CHL) on DSS at +00:00:00 (16)"><td>-</td><td>(16)</td><td>005 - FRANCISCO LOPEZ CONTARDO (CHL)
</td><td>KTM 450 RALLY FACTORY REPLICA
</td><td>07:24:00</td><td>(16)</td><td class="wait">-</td><td class="wait">(-)</td><td class="wait">-</td><td class="wait">(-)</td><td class="wait">-</td><td class="wait">(-)</td></tr></tbody></table>

I am to tired to translate, but BamBam as an explanation on how he and Coma found that wp: Google earth.

On his blog (well written but in spanish) he has some interesting views on stage 4 and 5.

Is there a spanish / english f5 translator around ?

http://blogs.elpais.com/dakar/

On stage on 4: