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Dakar 2014 - Stage 13 Fighting all the way to the end Cyril Despres (Yamaha Factory Racing) posted the fastest time on the last special and came to within 35 seconds of the podium, before being reclassified 5th on the stage, following a 5 minute speeding penalty. Finally 4th overall, his support rider Michael Metge finished 7th on the stage to be classified 13th overall. Cyril Despres "I attacked so hard on the special that my front disc got really hot, causing the pick up on my tripmeter to malfunction. It meant that I didn’t have the right information on my navigation equipment, which in turn made following the road book difficult – hence my speeding penalty. Still, I have the satisfaction of knowing I gave it my absolute maximum. Congratulations to Olivier (Pain). He rode a really good race and thoroughly deserves his podium place – a reward for all the effort the team have put into the rally programme." Michael Metge "Obviously I am delighted to have made it to the finish of what everybody says was an exceptionally hard Dakar. I am also really pleased to have spent it in the company of Cyril and been able to learn so much from him. He has been extremely generous with his many years of experience and for me the whole process has been extremely rewarding - I am sure it will prove very useful in the future. Thank you also to the whole team, both here and back at home, for all the hard work they have put in." Picture: Pascal Haudiquert
Dakar 2014 - Stage 12 Second 2014 Dakar victory today for Cyril Despres (Yamaha Factory Racing) as he continues his fight to get on to the podium. And with second placed man Joan Barreda losing over 3 hours today Cyril finds himself in 4th place overall just 3 minutes 45 seconds behind third placed man Olivier Pain. Cyril’s support rider Michael Metge had a less successful day with electrical problems in 44th place and 13th overall. Cyril Despres "A good day – I really enjoyed myself. As I expected, I caught Marc (Coma) quite quickly, he let me pass and then once again I opened the piste until the end of the special. Now there’s only one relatively short stage before the end and I’m just a few minutes off the podium. As is the tradition at Yamaha, there are no team orders, so I’ll continue to ride as I have since the start of this race, to try and finish in the best position possible." Michael Metge "My bike stopped at kilometre 280 with an electrical problem and so I started checking all the connections until I got the bike running again. It took a while and it was so hot out there in the middle of nowhere that I was worried I’d suffer heat stroke. Fortunately some Chilean guys turned up on moto-x bikes and poured water all over me to keep me cool. Without them I’d have really been in trouble." Alexandre Kowalski – Team Manager "Neither Cyril or Olivier have received any team orders – it is not the Yamaha way of doing things – we believe the race should be on the piste, not in the bivouac. We have obviously discussed the situation between us and they know they are both free to ride their own race. Whatever the outcome I am confident both riders will remain ‘fairplay’." Picture : Frederic Le Floch / DPPI / www.dppi.net
Dakar 2014 - Stage 11 It was the overall leader Marc Coma who came from behind to win the special with Cyril Despres (Yamaha Factory Racing) second at 2’51. Overall the battle for third place continues to rage with Cyril now 23’22 off the podium with just two day’s racing left until the end in Valparaiso. Michael Metge finished 11th on special to move up to 12th overall. Cyril Despres "Six hours 38 minutes – that’s a long day’s racing and in 605 kilometres of special we had pretty much everything – climbs, descents, sand, pistes, rios – the lot. I was hoping to get pulled along by Barreda but unfortunately he crashed heavily and destroyed his navigation gear, so I ended up opening the piste again – this time for 400 kilometres. And inevitably when you open its difficult to pull back time. Tomorrow I start behind Marc and I think there’s a strong chance I’ll end up opening again. He’s pretty comfortably installed in the lead and if he pulls over and lets me pass he’ll be helping his team mate Viladoms." Michael Metge "If I’d done this special last year I’d have been completely exhausted at the end of it. But this year, with my new fitness regime, I feel pretty good, despite almost 7 hours on the bike. And now ‘the boss’ has ‘suggested’ that I ride the static bike for 20 minutes to aid recuperation. I can’t complain – he’s just done the same!" Picture : François Flamand / DPPI / www.dppi.net
Starting down the field this morning after yesterday’s 15 minute speeding penalty, Joan Barreda won the stage ahead of Rodrigues, with Cyril Despres (Yamaha Factory Racing) third (at 9’40) with his support rider Michael Metge finishing 20th (at 34’28). Overall Cyril gains two places and is this evening just 26 minutes and 24 seconds behind third placed man Viladoms. Cyril Despres "I really enjoyed the first special in the dunes. I caught up Marc (Coma), got past him and then opened the piste. The navigation wasn’t easy but I managed to stay concentrated and really enjoyed myself on the bike. And as is often the case, when you are enjoying yourself you go quicker and pull back time. The second special was a completely different story, with a lot of fesh fesh and zero riding pleasure. At the end Marc was just in front of me when he made a little error and we turned too early into a gully. When we realised our mistake, instead of turning back, we rode out the side, up a really steep climb, to get back on to the road book. We had a good laugh about our ‘debutants’ error when we got to the finish line." Michael Metge "I was riding at a good pace and feeling happy on the bike when I came up behind another rider in the fesh fesh. I should have held back and waited but I wanted to maintain my rhythm. Result: I fell changing ruts and landed right on my head. I felt a bit groggy after that and backed right off. I think I might be in for a telling off from ‘the boss’ this evening!" Picture : François Flamand / DPPI / www.dppi.net
Dakar 2014 - Stage 9 After yesterday’s win Cyril Despres opened the piste this morning aboard his Yamaha YZF 450 Rally and despite the difficult navigation finished third on the day to move up a place to 8th overall. The Frenchman is now less than 23 minutes from the fourth placed rider Israel and just over 51 minutes off the podium. Michael Metge lost time with navigation and crossed the line in 18th place to maintain his 14th position overall. Cyril Despres "I’m very relieved to have made it all the way to the end. At the refuelling at kilometre 201 I noticed I had a fuel leak from the one of the rear tanks, and that petrol was dripping on to the exhaust pipe! I tried to drain as much of the fuel out of there into the other tanks as possible and then set off hoping for the best. As I crossed the line the bike started to cut out from lack of petrol! I also had a pretty big crash in the fesh fesh around kilometre 250. A pity, because up until the refuelling I was concentrating hard on the navigation and making good progress. Overall I made up some more ground today on those just in front of me and as before will keep attacking to see what can be achieved before the final finish line." Michael Metge "I reckon a lot of riders behind the top 3 are mainly following the tracks in front of them and for sure you ‘waste’ less time that way. However one of the advantages of being a support rider is that you don’t have so much pressure regarding your individual result. So instead of following everybody else I try and do my own navigation. Today it caused me to get lost twice but it is the only way to learn and I am sure the experience I have the luxury of gaining now will pay off in the future." Picture : Marcelo Maragni / Red Bull Content Pool
Dakar 2014 - Stage 8 A small piece of history was written on the 8th stage of the 2014 Dakar, with Cyril Despres (Yamaha Factory Racing) taking his first Dakar special win aboard his YZF 450 Rally, arriving at the bivouac in Calama 2’09 ahead of Barreda and 2’15 in front of Marc Coma. Cyril’s support rider Michael Metge also had a good day finishing in 6th place to move up to 14th overall. Cyril Despres "I have to be honest and admit that I didn’t set out this morning
to win the special, it was more a by-product of my determination to move up
the overall rankings. I won’t deny though that I’m delighted with the
result, both for myself and Yamaha. Michael Metge "A couple of tough days. I managed to give Cyril a good back tyre yesterday in the marathon bivouac but in preserving the rear I wore out the front more than I wanted to. Apart from that, not too many problems. I didn’t suffer too much with the altitude, but my ears hurt like hell coming down! Then on the liaison today into the bivouac there was a really strong wind and we had to ride at an angle so as not to get blown over. Equally impressive were the number of people who came out to welcome us in Bolivia. Excuse the pun – but I was blown away!" Alexandre Kowalski, Team Manager "For us Cyril’s stage 8 victory is highly symbolic, coming as it does almost exactly a year after the tragic death of Yamaha Motor France’s founder, Jean-Claude Olivier. A Dakar podium finisher himself, ‘JCO’ was largely responsible for instilling the culture of rally-raid into the company, a tradition that has been perpetuated with enthusiasm by his successor Eric de Seynes."
Dakar 2014 - Stage 7 The first leg of the second marathon stage, which took the riders for the first time into Bolivia, was won by Joan Barreda ahead of Marc Coma with Cyril Despres, aboard his Yamaha YZF 450 Rally, third (at 5’35). Cyril’s support rider Michael Metge finished 17th at 18’31. Overall Cyril moves up a place to 10th (at 2h26) and Michael Metge 14th at 3h36. This evening, isolated from the rest of the rally, that has remained in Argentina, it is currently impossible to contact the riders to have their impressions of the stage, though it is hoped that communications might improve later on in the evening. In the meantime this what Cyril said to a member of the organisation on arriving at the bivouac: Cyril Despres "I took care with my breathing while we were up on two or three rdiges because we were riding at altitude and when you’re braking hard and riding in attack mode you can feel that you are physically limited. A nice special, not too much navigation, but a lot of mud. You have to be careful in the mud and streams. It is so easy to fall in or get stuck. Once the water is brown you can’t tell if it is 20 cm deep or 50. The bike doesn’t look too pretty like this covered in mud but we’ll clean out the radiator so that the cooling system functions OK." Picture : Eric Vargiolu / DPPI / www.dppi.net
Dakar 2014 - Stage 6 After a difficult couple of days for the Yamaha Factory Racing, Michael Metge gave the team something to cheer about by posting his best Dakar stage finish to date, a fine third place coming into the rest day bivouac at Salta. Starting behind him this morning, Cyril Despres arrived just behind him in 5th (at 02’55). Overall Marc Coma maintains his lead with Olivier Pain 6th (at 1h43) Cyril Despres 11th (at 2h24) and Michael Metge 13th (at 3h16). Cyril Despres "After yesterday’s problems I started 17th this morning and obviously had quite a lot of dust to contend with over the first 100 or so kilometres - fortunately most of the riders who I caught were very fair play and let me through. At kilometre 35 I had a small crash and burst my camel back which meant I had nothing to drink. The only solution was to ‘borrow’ a couple of bottles off spectators at the side of the piste. Then at kilometre 210 I came across the spot where Lopez had his crash. Looking at where he came off it must have been a big one! Now we are at the rest day bivouac and have a day to sort ourselves out for the second half of the race. They call it a rest day but there’ll be plenty to keep us occupied!" Michael Metge "This morning, at the start of the first special, Cyril said to me ‘enjoy yourself’ by which he meant ‘ride your own race’. Then when we saw each other again at the refuelling he compared the amount of dust we each had on our jackets and said, ‘maybe you should calm down a little’. And that pretty much sums up the conflicting demands of racing a motorcycle on the Dakar. You have to ‘enjoy’ yourself on the bike, feel relaxed and happy, to ride well, but at the same time you have to set yourself limits, ride at a percentage of your maximum ability. I’m naturally really pleased with the result, but what the lesson I learnt today was much more important."
Dakar 2014 - Stage 5 Another frustrating day today for Cyril Despres (Yamaha Factory Racing) with fuel problems forcing him to end his search for the elusive WP17 prematurely. He finally finished 18th on the day and is currently 8th overall. He will however receive an extra hour’s penalty later on this evening for the missing waypoint. Team-mate Michael Metge did manage to find the WP. Finishing 13th on the stage, Mika is 18th at 3h16’03. Cyril Despres "It was very hot in the special and the sand was soft. Because of that I was paying particular attention to engine temperature and even more so when I noticed I was consuming fuel at an alarming rate. I was on my way to get the famous WP17 but had to turn back when I realised I wouldn’t have enough fuel to make it to the end. I was right on the limit of running out when I came across a quad rider who kindly gave me a litre and a half. In all, my various problems cost me 44 minutes, to which will be added the one hour penalty…" Michael Metge "After yestrday’s stage I started late this morning and suffered in the dust right at the beginning of the special. After that we got to the first set of dunes and I was pleased to find that, after the changes we’d made to my suspension, my bike handled much better than in the sand on the second stage. All of which meant I was able to attack the second lot of dunes in the camel grass with much more confidence and got past a fair few riders, to finish 13th on the stage. All in all, not a bad day." Picture : Gigi Soldano / DPPI / www.dppi.net
Dakar 2014 - Stage 4 Until just before today’s finish line Cyril Despres (Yamaha Factory Racing) was holding the overall lead of the 2014 Dakar Rally. Then 9 kilometres from the end the support holding his Iritrack broke, causing a short circuit in the electrical system that brought his bike to a halt. The ex-mechanic battled for an agonising 40 minutes to find and repair the problem and finally finished in 16th place and is this evening in 6th place overall, 41’17 behind the leader Barreda. Michael Metge, Cyril Despres’s support rider finished in 38th place after getting lost at km 247. Cyril Despres "Everything was going perfectly and the strategy I’d devised with Mika and our tyre swap was paying off handsomely. 170 kilometres from the end I was riding with Marc (Coma) and Joan (Barreda) and shortly after that Marc and I managed to break away and I became the virtual overall leader. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed but I’ve been here before and still reached the top of the final podium. It would have been so easy to have abandoned out in the special and catch the next plane home, but I love this race, I love riding my bike and most of all I love a challenge. And as long as I believe I have a fighting chance I’ll do exactly that – keep fighting." Michael Metge "Just like Cyril’s, my day was going really well. The bike felt good and I was in form and was thinking that with all the navigation Cyril is going to pull back some time. Then at kilometre 247 there was a modification to the road book and you had to find a piste on the left. Except the rain had washed it away and I took the wrong Rio. Unfortunately the next note was 25 kilometres later on, which meant that in total I rode 50 kilometres extra through big rocks and lost a load of time."
Dakar 2014 - Stage 3 Just when you think the race is starting to settle down the Dakar bites back with a startling series of surprises, with difficult navigation and technical enduro terrain leaving yesterday’s rankings is chaos. The good news is that this evening Cyril Despres moves up from 8th to 2nd overall, 13’04 behind Barreda. The bad news is that Frans Verhoven’s (Yamaha Netherlands Verhoven Team) race has come to a premature end after he crashed out with a broken elbow. For his part Olivier Pain continues to climb up the leader board and is this evening in 8th place overall (at 36’33) while Michael Metge ‘did the job’ bringing home an ‘as new’ set of tyres to this evening’s marathon stage for Cyril to use tomorrow. Cyril Despres "Today’s special has to go straight into the Top 5 most stunning specials I have done in 13 years of racing rallies – and in that time I’ve been to some pretty amazing places! As announced, the recent rains had really cut up the first part of the special and the riding was far from easy. Then at kilometre 299 we came to this incredible 3 kilometre climb. It was a really really hard to get up and I can only begin to imagine how many riders will go out of the race at that point – and it’s not just the amateurs who are going to struggle. Then after that we rode for about 60 kilometres on stunning tracks over a series of mountain ridges, as beautiful as they were difficult to navigate. Towards the end I came up behind and past both David Casteu and Marc Coma. All in all an excellent day that more than makes up for yesterday’s disappointments." Michael Metge "This morning I gave Cyril my word I’d give him some ‘prefect’ tyres this evening and I’m proud to say I was able to keep that promise. I started off really slowly, perhaps too slowly, and then found an optimum pace using the ‘berms’ left by the riders in front of me so as to keep my speed as constant as possible and stay off the brakes. The other big positive from today was the route designed by David Castera, which was just amazing. Today we went to places you could only ever go on a motorcycle, preferably a trials bike, and it was a unique experience. And just to top it all, apart from swapping over our wheels, Cyril and I have very little to do to the bikes. We’ll do our road books now and then change the oil when it cools down a little." Picture : Eric Vargiolu / DPPI / www.dppi.net General ranking stage 3 Pos. Name Mark Time Variation
Dakar 2014 - Stage 2 The second stage of the 2014 Dakar was won by Sam Sunderland ahead of Lopez, with Barreda third. Cyril Despres (Yamaha Factory Racing) finished in 10th place (at 08’43) with Oliver Pain 12th (at 11’12), Frans Verhoeven 16th (at 14’39) and Michael Metge 22nd at 22.04. Overall Barreda holds the lead in front of Lopez with Sunderland moving up to third. Cyril is now 8th at 08’23, Olivier is 13th at 15’59 and Frans 18th at 19’37. Race officials are currently examining the validity of a 41 minute penalty given to Michael Metge yesterday after his time card was marked as being late into the bivouac. Cyril Despres “I arrived a little too quickly on a note in the road book at around kilometre 250 and went over the handlebars. Fortunately it was a soft landing so the bike wasn’t damaged but it took me a while to dust myself down and get going again and inevitably I lost time. Overall a day to forget.” Michael Metge “It was an OK day until I got into the bivouac and discovered that the officials had given me a 41 minute penalty for supposedly arriving late at the bivouac yesterday evening – something I don’t understand at all as I came in at the same time as Cyril. Currently the organisers are looking at my GPS to check when I actually arrived and hopefully all that should be cleared up this evening. It kind of took the fun out the day…”
Dakar 2014 - Stage 1 Victory on the first stage of the 2014 Dakar, between San Luis and San Rafael went to Joan Barreda with countryman Marc Coma second at 0’37 and Cyril Despres (Yamaha Factory Racing) third at 1’40. Teammate Michael Metge finished in 8th place (at 4’33) with Olivier Pain 16th (at 6’47) and Frans Verhoeven 18th (at 6’58). Cyril Despres “When your alarm clock goes off at 02.40 in the morning you know the Dakar has really started! And in true Dakar tradition that was followed by 404 kilometres of liaison, before we got to the 180 kilometre special. Opening the piste it took me a while to find my pace and then about 50 kilometres from the end, coming out of a canyon, I saw a dust trail behind me and thought to myself, ‘ah yes, Marc is back’ and accelerated a little. In the great scheme of things the finishing position isn’t of much importance, but it is good to know that I’m up to speed and overall it was a good day for myself and my team, on our first Dakar special together.” Michael Metge “To be really honest I was a little bit nervous this morning sitting on the start line waiting to be flagged away. Happily I quickly settled down and not long after that really start to enjoy myself over the fast, twisty tracks. Hats off to ‘The Boss’, he really knows how to set up a motorcycle. I think in general we tend to ride with the suspension too firm, but with Cyril’s settings the bike felt both comfortable and safe. In the end I got past three riders and am pretty happy with how the whole day turned out.” General ranking stage 1 Pos. Name Mark Time Variation
Dakar 2014 - The Calm before the storm On the eve of the start of the 2014 Dakar the bikes have passed through technical scrutineering and are safely in the parc ferme. All that remains is the organiser’s general briefing and the traditional ‘family’ photo of the motorcycle competitors before they set off for the first 809 kilometre stage from Rosario to San Luis and its ‘short’ 180 kilometre special. Cyril Despres "We’ve been here for six days now, first in Buenos Aires, where we were received like royalty by Yamaha Argentina and now in Rosario where the rally start is situated. In that time we’ve tested the bikes twice, packed the trucks, organised the camping car and done a couple of hundred interviews. I might be exaggerating slightly concerning the interviews, but not by much! And now we’re ready to go. Of course, with so many official teams and riders present this year the media have whipped themselves up into a frenzy trying to predict the result. Personally, with 9209 kilometres between here and the finish I’m slightly more reluctant to announce the final result 15 days ahead of time! What I do know is that, as always, I will be giving it absolutely everything I’ve got – and a little bit more."
"The days before the race gets underway are always a little long but for us, in our new configuration, they have been useful. Over the last few days the complicity among the different members of the team has grown and the atmosphere is excellent, ‘the mayonnaise has taken’, as we say in French! With Cyril on board this year our ambitions are clearly greater and we are all really looking forward to the challenge of fighting for the victory." Pictures : François FLAMAND / DPPI / www.dppi.net Share |
Alexandre Kowalski, Team Manager