Stage 6 - Friday 25 April 2008 | Veszprem- Veszprem
- Connection 11.0 km
- Special 157.0 km
- Connection 0.5 km
- Connection 35.0 km
- Special 54.0 km
- Connection 61.0 km
- Total 317.0 km
Interviews
Cyril Despres – KTM - (After the first special) - 001
"Today, I was the 5th or 6th contestant to start. It is obviously easier because you are less scared of finding someone or something in the way like a carriage, spectators, or animals... It allowed me to come on stronger, so I did... Plus the track we had chosen yesterday was even better today after the whole caravan drove it: there was better grip in the curves because of all the cars and trucks that drove by. So driving it was real fun. As the route is nice and the weather is great, this morning’s drive was a real pleasure."
David Casteu - KTM - 003
"Chaleco (Francisco Lopez) was behind me for the first timed special, so I based my racing on him to manage my race whilst keeping an eye on him. I really felt the pressure of making a good result: loosing because of a silly decision was not an option. It was a bit hard for me to find the right pace. So in the second timed special, I said to myself: "Have fun, focus on your driving, go for it, find the right trajectories but do not take all possible risks." And this is what I managed to do having much, much more fun in the process. And the result is there as I ended up 3rd of the stage 3" behind Lopez, so it’s great! Now I will prepare my road book for tomorrow because it will be particularly important. Today, the second timed special showed me that I had to stay focused on the race until the end not to make mistakes, so tomorrow, I will attack, play it clean and then... we’ll see."
Jaroslav Katrinak - KTM - 008
"Today was my 34th birthday, so I really wanted to win the special stage, but I didn’t make it. I finished 2nd, so it is still a pretty nice birthday gift, but I would have loved to get an even nicer one!... Oh well, I raced well today, everything went fine and the bike went great. I will try to do the same tomorrow, but I will attack a bit more because I would really really want to win the last stage!"
Hubert Deltrieu - Polaris - 118
"Yesterday, I was pretty tame and I took 2 minutes, which annoyed me slightly. So today I decided to attack all the more that I really had a blast on the trail. Cherry on the cake, my move also put the pressure on my opponent Christophe Declerck, which is another piece of good news, so I decided to attack again in the afternoon but without taking too much risk and I had great fun again. But tomorrow, I will calm down. As I will be starting before my rival, I will let him drive by nice and easy so he can open the trail and I will stick to his back wheel till the finishing line. He will be the one taking the risk, not I this time."
Carlos Sainz - VW - (After the first special) - 201
"We gave our very best today and we made the most of how well we knew the route as we had already raced this special yesterday. We are back in the lead but it is a very very close call. We have more of a rally-style than a raid-style driving but for the time being it seems to be paying off."
Stephane Peterhansel - Mitsubishi - (After the first special) - 200
"It is true; it is a hot race! This morning, I really started at a very good pace and the intermediary timing was putting us in the lead ahead of Carlos Sainz. But after 90 km, I caught up with Luc (Alphand) and started to get a lot of the dust sitting in the slower portions of the track. So I had to slow down a little to finish some 30" behind Sainz who is back in the lead in the overall rankings. It’s back to square one and there is only 200 km of special up to the finish line. But anything remains possible... At any rate, I am having a ball fighting for every second, even if it is not usual in a rally-raid. The philosophy of the race is really different: we take more risk and the adrenalin rush is bigger too. So whatever happens in the end, we will have had a lot of fun, plus the satisfaction of fighting up against a double WRC champ on a track that is more in his favor than ours as pure African rally pilots used to trails and deserts more than anything else."
Carlos Sainz - VW - 201
"Tomorrow will be very, very hard. It will all be a matter of seconds. What will matter will be to avoid making mistakes, not to get a flat. A flat tire is always more or less fortuitous. We will see. Anyway, I will try to make a very good stage tomorrow. I really did not expect to be in this situation, especially after the trouble I had in the beginning of the race. Lagging behind by 8 minutes, I thought the race was over for me. Then it was the turn of Stéphane Peterhansel to have problems and I could come back. But what matters the most is that there are 150 km left tomorrow and we have to finish! First preferably!"
Stéphane Peterhansel - Mitsubishi - 200
"We really tried to resist this afternoon; we really took a lot of risks - more than ever since the beginning of the race. Some corrections to our notes were not well adjusted compared to yesterday’s route, which cost us about 10 seconds. But we could not have done much better. Carlos Sainz was faster today. He is in the lead in the general standings but anything can happen with 150 km to go and 18" between us. Pressure is on his shoulders, but he knows how to handle this type of situations. But you never know: a flat, a small error can always happen and this morning we were faster than him in the beginning of the timed special. So anything is possible. We still believe in it and we will be fighting very hard. Obviously with this gap between us and the speed of the race, everything will have to be perfect both with the piloting and with the roadbook."
Luc Alphand - Mitsubishi - 202
"There is really close to no time between Depping and I. 7 seconds... although I lost control at one point in the timed special and had to drive back a bit, which cost us about 10 seconds... But it is interesting! We are in a middle of a fight for the podium and that is always fun. And it’s already very nice to be in this position in the standings because the two first ones are really driving to the max. It goes very, very, very fast, trust me! At any rate, I am happy; because this speed is almost new to me. Here the race is fast every day, on tracks we don’t know, so I am making progress as well and I am getting closer to the best in the sport. Now there are 150 km left where anything can happen. Getting a flat or driving off track can happen so fast. It will be an extremely close call and I would not want the close call to be against me. As the 5th in the general standings is at 30’, if it means finishing 4th for me, I can almost stop and grab a cup of coffee!"
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