Despres Wins Again, But It’s Still Roma

Paul Carruthers | January 15, 2004

Cyril Despres won another stage of the Dakar Rally today, but it may be a case of too little too late as Repsol KTM’s Nani Roma made up ground from an early mistake to finishing the stage in third place, pulling away from Richard Sainct in the overall standings.

Roma finished third behind Despres and Alfie Cox, but he was ahead of Sainct and that’s really all that matters at this point in the rally. Roma now leads Sainct by nine minutes and 40 seconds in the overall standings. Despres is third, but he’s over 40 minutes behind.

Red Bull KTM’s Larry Roeseler continued his march towards the top 10 withn an 11th-place finish in today’s stage 14. Roeseler is now 13th overall.

Yamaha’s David Fretigne, the winner of yesterday’s stage, ended up fifth today and is now up to eighth overall – the first non-KTM rider.

Paul Carruthers | Editor

Paul Carruthers took over as the editor of Cycle News in 1993 after serving as associate editor since starting his career at the publication in 1985. Carruthers has covered every facet of the sport in his near-28-year tenure at America's Daily Motorcycle News Source.