MINI Countryman Dakar Coverage
We’re starting to get little bits and pieces of information trickling in from sources and readers who are paying attention to this year’s Dakar race. We’ll post the full story once we have it, but in the meantime, here’s a post for random things as they get sent in. Starting with the above photo from the starting line. Thanks for sending it in, Jack. If you’ve found info on the race, please use the contact page to send it our way.
Dakar overview video. There’s a brief shot of the Countryman.
Another Dakar video here. This time with some team interviews.
Dakar website X-raid team page, featuring the MINI Countryman. Not much there, but there it is.
Stage one overview video, featuring some MINI race footage.
It’s in German, but this video shows some detail from the MINI Countryman’s stage one breakdown at around 1:04:
<p>Very cool, lets just hope that BMW has been able to fix their Achilles heal from last year (reliability) that allowed VW to wind the top three positions. Since the MINI was largely developed from their X3. Either way should be fun to watch the race kick off to see how the BMW/Monster entries do this year.</p>
<p>i wish there was tv coverage of this…i loved watching the dakar on speed tv back in the day…have not heard nor seen anything relating to it since the early part of this decade though. Go MINI!</p>
<p>At CP1- MINI 55 seconds back in position #10! Not bad for first day and first race.</p>
<p>They must have had a break down near the end of the stage. They are now about 1 hr back in #77 place. Something got them as they were running between 8 and 10 place through the stage until CP8 and CP9.</p>
<p>The Countryman vehicule finished 78th on Sunday. They lost about an hour due to mechanical problems.
Today they placed 7th, and are up to 23rd overall.
<a href="http://www.dakar.com/dakar/2011/us/rider/305.html" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.dakar.com/dakar/2011/us/rider/305.html</a></p>
<p>Coverage on Versus TV</p>
<p>Quote from Guerlain Chicherit posted on site from stage 1: “It is very hard”
“It’s hard. It’s very hard. After 3 km we already had an alarm due to bad cooling. We managed up to 30 km before the end, then the brake discs gave in, splintered into the rim and blocked everything. I tried to unblock and go on like that but it was impossible. It’s hard. One year of work to get to this… it sure was a bad start. There is a lot of expectations on the car. A bad start indeed. Trouble is that tomorrow we will pay for today’s problems because it will be a long stretch and it will be very hard to pass other cars.”</p>
<p>Today must have been better. In the automotive division placed 7th, out 11 minutes from top finisher. Overall jumping up to 23rd position.</p>
<p>See link for TV coverage in your area of the world.
<a href="http://www.dakar.com/dakar/2011/us/worldwide-tv-dakar.html" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.dakar.com/dakar/2011/us/worldwide-tv-dakar.html</a></p>
<p>Another vid advertisement.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/dakar?v=photos#!/video/video.php?v=152826308100537" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.facebook.com/dakar?v=photos#!/video/video.php?v=152826308100537</a></p>
<p>Not sure if this will be of any use to the largely North American audience, but Australian TV channel SBS has highlights available via their website:
<a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/dakar/" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.sbs.com.au/dakar/</a></p>
<p>There’s also brief highlights available on YouTube:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/dakar/" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.youtube.com/dakar/</a></p>
<p>Looks like the MINI is holding it’s own in 14th overall after check point 12 today!</p>
<p>Go MINI!</p>
<p>You can get vitual standings from this site, for the stage and for overall.</p>
<p><a href="http://gaps.dakar.com/2011/dakar/stage-03/aso/ukie.php" rel="nofollow ugc">http://gaps.dakar.com/2011/dakar/stage-03/aso/ukie.php</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7PlczO_foY#t=1m4s" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7PlczO_foY#t=1m4s</a></p>
<p>Thanks Liam for the link
Good coverage on SBS and it gets through our company web filters. :)</p>
<p>MINI is just 32 seconds behind the leader at checkpoint 2 in today’s stage. Stage 4 virtual standings…. <a href="http://gaps.dakar.com/2011/dakar/stage-04/aso/ukie.php" rel="nofollow ugc">http://gaps.dakar.com/2011/dakar/stage-04/aso/ukie.php</a></p>
<p>*34 seconds behind at CP2</p>
<p>waypoint 2, not checkpoint 2.
there is only 1 checkpoint for the stage.</p>
<p>MINI finishes 7th today, 4:38 behind the stage leader.</p>
<p>Retains 14th overall position, 1:27:13 off the lead.</p>
<p>Today’s stage was rather short, but tomorrow’s stage is long and slow; should start to get interesting. If the MINI can shave 10 minutes off its time (relative to those ahead of it), it can jump 2 spots in the standings (and 5 spots for 20 minutes).</p>
<p>MINI finishes 10th in stage 5, nearly an hour back from the stage winner (a BMW today). But this appears to have moved the Countryman up 3 spots to 11th in the overall standings — less than 3 minutes from the car now in 10th overall position, but now 2:16:51 off the leader.</p>
<p>After waypoint 8 (of 12), Chicherit and the MINI are in 6th place with a time that should move them up 2 spots in the overall standings, breaking into the overall top 10 for the first time at #9. Pretty impressive for a new car that was only road tested for about 300km (shorter than many stages of this race) before the Dakar.</p>
<p>Wow, some really impressive days (when not shearing the brakes or ending up in a ditch). Helluva driver, methinks. Have been enjoying the Vs. coverage each evening (even if we only see our MINI when there are troubles).</p>